So he’s done it?

Oh how many times then did Mrs May say “no deal is better than a bad deal”?

I didn’t dream it.

Labaik-there was no vote held to take us into the EU when we joined in 1973. There was a referendum in 1975 when we voted to stay after the usual scare mongering, as we have seen recently.

When we joined the then “Common Market”, it seemed like a good plan, trading back and forth. The trouble seems to have started when they started getting involved in our laws etc and having too much influence on things we had been quite capable of sorting out ourselves previously. If we had just carried on trading and nothing else, maybe the leavers would not have been so against staying in.

unlikely to have time to pass any laws that could “stop the prime minister taking the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October”
But parliament shouldn’t WANT to stop the PM taking the UK out of the EU. They refused to sanction the only deal we have, therefore, this IS the only option.
We had a vote
We voted to leave
So let’s leave
Well done Boris.

Once we leave, others will follow - the whole EU house of cards will come tumbling down.
Then in years to come, Europe will have the bright new idea of making a trading union...and off we go again...

There was a democratic vote - UK voted to leave - why do the majority of MPs not listen to the people?

Perhaps the MPs had read the actual wording of the Act that set up the referendum? The Act that doesn't say anything about a narrow yes vote having to lead to it becoming law?

It isn't all Boris's fault......he has to do whatever his handler - a certain Donald Trump - tells him to do.

Just as Tony Blair was referred to as George Bush's Poodle so Boris is also Tartar Trump's pet sycophant!

I bet the Queen would like to knock their heads together and I wouldn't blame her one bit.

They had THREE YEARS to sort it out. Plans blocked and sabotaged by mps who would not listen to the people's democratic vote, putting their interests fist. They have themselves to blame. Mrs May put forward a deal and three times they voted against her. What a headache. No wonder some other European countries are too scared to give their people the choice to vote leave or stay. There is so much discontent within the European parliament. I spent several years in Italy and Denmark and they are not happy.

Elegran

Perhaps the MPs had read the actual wording of the Act that set up the referendum? The Act that doesn't say anything about a narrow yes vote having to lead to it becoming law?

???So Yes wasn’t enough of a yes!
A win by 1 vote is a win.
Imagine an Olympic race - Silver medalist complaining to gold “I know you won but...but...but you only beat me by 0.5 of a second, that means you didn't really win!???
Now you really are clutching at straws.
We had a referendum - stay or leave - we voted leave, just get over yourselves remainers. Nobody is suggesting you should like it but it IS the outcome and all this foot stamping and dummy throwing is not going to change the outcome of the vote.

I am a Remainer Dollybird, but have to say that I agree with you.

As I said upthread what difference do 4 or 5 lost debating days make when we have lost over 3 years ?

This is thuggish behaviour from the PM but many posters are ready to justify it and repeat that they knew very well what they were voting for three years ago, thank you very much.
They seem less ready to tell the rest of us what they understood no deal to entail. Or what they understood the solution for Ireland to be. I've asked that question at least twice here in the past month, and Labaik has asked it at least twice today. Continued failure to answer gives the impression that some of the Leavers on here were not very deep thinkers.

To be a president of America people have to be born in the USA. Shame we don't have the same rule in GB.

jura2

WOW GGMK3- that was unpleasant and uncalled for, for sure sad

Erm, no it really wasn’t a terrible comment - not worth getting so upset over-It was quite funny.
I think you to calm down a bit.

I have a strong feeling that this prorogation is intended to provoke a General Election. All the propaganda has been aimed at a GE. If the opposition go for a vote of no confidence he can blame them.

If the opposition move a Motion of No Confidence and the Fixed Term Parliament Act(FTPA) kicks in within the 14 days it gives to find a motion of confidence in an alternative government, parliament will have potentially prorogued before the 14 days expires and there is no way to bring parliament back, under the FTPA so the PM can just run down the time table. This will be the case unless the opposition are very quick off the mark.

If that isn't undemocratic I have no idea, in a parliamentary democracy, what is.

Regarding another referendum, why not another but include a second vote at the same time. First to confirm out and the second hard or soft. Don't shout out 'fed up with voting', 100 years ago suffragettes put their lives in danger so that women could have the right

Tigertooth and Jura. I have no idea what you are referring to.

Great news.
Agree with Tigertooth.
In reality, parliament will be only closed for 4 additional days because the rest of the time involves conferences.
It's time this was sorted.

You may agree NannyC2, but with what? Do you understand any of the law surrounding this?

The difference is that, in a national emergency Parliament COULD have been recalled in September but, as it stands now that is not possible. Also, the parties shouldn't be wasting time having conferences at a time when the country is in crisis...[or holidays for that matter...]

'Once we leave, others will follow - the whole EU house of cards will come tumbling down.'...you know that for a fact do you? Sounds a bit 'project fear'ish to me...

winterwhite

This is thuggish behaviour from the PM but many posters are ready to justify it and repeat that they knew very well what they were voting for three years ago, thank you very much.
They seem less ready to tell the rest of us what they understood no deal to entail. Or what they understood the solution for Ireland to be. I've asked that question at least twice here in the past month, and Labaik has asked it at least twice today. Continued failure to answer gives the impression that some of the Leavers on here were not very deep thinkers

But the majority voted to leave so we’ll leave. Society is made up of all sorts across the full spectrum of personalities and intellects.
I don’t have a solution to the Ireland issue - that’s the job of politicians, that’s what they are for.
Do you believe in democracy? One person, one vote? Or should only ‘deep political thinkers’ vote? Serious question.
And how would you democratically discriminate who was ‘thinking deeply’ enough to vote?
Should an adult with mild learning difficulties, but a desire to vote, be disallowed to vote because s/he is not a deep thinker?
What about those who never had a decent education?
Those who are just not up to your self imposed standards intellectually? Not allowed to vote?
If you exercise your ‘deep thinking’ you’ll realise what a load of twaddle your deep thinking post is.
Presuming that you are a democratic remainer - now that the vote is to leave - what’s your solution to the Ireland issue? Do you have a solution to the backstop issue whilst honouring the democratic vote? No, didn’t think so.
Like most remainders you’re just going to stamp your foot wailing “But I don’t want to go”

It is not just 4 or 5 debating days that have been lost but 4 or 5 working weeks.

Because we are in a national emergency and time is running out, those who want to save us from a no deal brexit would have ensured that parliament did not close down for the whole of the conference season as it usually does. The party conferences would have still gone ahead and it would be up to each MP to decide whether he wanted to be at conference or in the HoC on any particular day.

What is needed is not just more time to debate, but time to legislate which is difficult to complete in a few days, and the outrageous action the government has taken is intended to prevent that.

We ought to be shocked to the core that Johnson, Rees Mogg, Gove and co are blatantly lying about this being nothing to do with brexit - it has everything to do with brexit and most of us can see that, but we have become so used to these liars getting away with it that it is almost losing its power to shock. What is still shocking is how many people seem no longer to care about the truth.

Tigertooth I am not clutching at straws, this is what I have always believed about the referendum results, and so have a lot of other people with far better knowledge than I (or most of us) do about the way this country is run.

In this country our laws are made by our elected Parliament. That is how our representational democracy works. We occasionally have referendums, to find out quickly what the electorate are thinking on a specific subject. There is not any precedent to make a referendum into a binding law, that is done by Parliament, who discuss potential new law and hammer out the details in Parliament. The referendum in question was no different - the legislation that made it legal to hold it was only to hold it, for advisory purposes, not to make the results binding and automatically turn them into an Act and make them into law.

David Cameron had no right to say that they would abide by the result - he only said that because he thought it would be no! Had he been in an election campaign, he would have promised a whole lot of things that never materialised. This was similar.

At the moment there is a stalemate in Parliament because our elected representatives cannot agree on what kind of deal we should seek in our attempt to leave the EU. The proper solution to this kind of stalemate would be to abandon the project completely and return to the status quo, not to send the MPs to bed early, like a lot of naughty children.

Some people get so indignant about suggestions that they didn't know what they were voting for in the referendum.
We are news and politics wonks...watch every edition of the Politics show, Newsnight, Marr etc etc, (sad, I know, but we are pretty housebound),
Despite all this, I still don't understand all the ramifications for trade, and would be pushed to explain the Irish backstop.
I do understand that these things are important, and potentially disastrous, and wish more of our politicians put concern for these things ahead of their careers.