Verbal

It's not leverage. Firstly, the EU doesn't care. Any damage done to other economies will be offset in part by the continuing drift of UK companies, investment and assets to EU states. That will be measured in trillions. £800,000 billion of assets has already been shifted from the City to the EU. Secondly, the EU doesn't believe it. We're in a weird Mexican stand-off where one side - us - is holding the gun to their own heads. The EU believes least of all the 'no-dealers'. What Brexit extremists - the Jihadists - want with their no-deal is Mauritania +++. But even Mauritania doesn't trade solely on the (highly restrictive, anti-free-trade) WTO tariff regime. And thirdly, the EU has been treated throughout by Brexiteers, including Davis and Raab, as some sort of competing state. It's not. It's a legal order, with rules, costs and benefits which apply to members and not to third-party states (that's us). Unless someone in the government other than the civil servants actually grasps that, we're headed for the only course of action open unilaterally to May - to revoke article 50.

But it's also quite on the money. Brexit has always been a generational issue, and Leavers are, in far greater numbers, coffin-dodgers, as Shylock helpfully puts it. This assumes that everyone votes the same way they did in 2016, plus some calculations about newly enrolled voters would make their decisions. But actually, recent polls have shown a consistent drift towards remain, with the latest YouGov poll putting Remain at 56% and Leave at 44%. https://metro.co.uk/2019/01/17/second-referendum-56-remain-44-leave-new-poll-reveals-8355458/ So predictions about mass riots if Brexit is cancelled seem either wide of the mark, or we're facing a bizarre mix of revolting oldies, racists, pedophiles (see my previous illuminating post on the small but significant pedophile constituency among Brexiters) and the odd attempted murderer. Happy days!

You can call him whatever names you like. The reality is as he describes it in relation to things like fisheries policy. The supreme irony is that if we do leave on 29 March, we'll have waved goodbye to all of our bargaining power, and EU countries like France, Holland, Germany and Belgium can appropriate British companies and assets at an even greater rate than they already are at present.

Indeed. And his wild-eyed screed (above) has all the trappings and tropes of a late-Weimar window-smasher. By the way, who the ****, I wonder, is 'Freedman'?

I disagree. He got as far as the author's name, which had a certain, let's say, Levantine quality.

I'm not exactly a fan of Corbyn's, but there is an important internal party logic to calling the no confidence vote. The party conference in September passed a resolution opposing May's 'deal' and demanding for a people's vote IF a general election cannot be triggered. So it's about process. First the no confidence vote (which he'll lose, and he knows it), then backing for a second referendum. That's the theory. Whether his Bennism allows him to let go of his underlying anti-EU stance is another question. So things will go as we'd all expect tomorrow, but they get interesting after that.

Okay, if allying yourself with racist abusers won't give you pause for thought - let alone any actual condemnation - how comfortable are you allying with pedophiles? Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's mob have hijacked and are leading the yellow vests. Let's look at the record of some other neon Nazis - those identifying with Yaxley Lennon's politics. Richard Price. Former EDL leader. Now on the sex offender's register, having admitted four counts of making indecent images of children and two charges of possessing cocaine. Michael Coates. NW Infidels. Charged with two attempted rapes and other sexual offences. Brett Moses. Hull EDL. 12-month prison sentence for sexual grooming. Matthew Woodward. Teesside EDL. Charged with child pornography and soliciting a thirteen year old for photographs. Alan Thomas Ellis. Deeside EDL. Convicted of sending texts of a sexual nature to a fourteen year old girl. Archie Sliman. EDL. Kidnapping and abusing a ten year old girl. Stephen Payne. SDL. Convicted of grooming a thirteen year old. Nigel Hesmondalgh. BNP. Jailed for possessing a series of degrading photos and videos of children.

Ah, another cri de coeur from our resident, and self-identifying, neon Nazi sympathiser. I wonder if you have any thoughts on what was actually said in that video? As ever, the Brexit jihadists on here won't distance themselves from the rabid racists that have attached to the post-referendum slide of this country into tiny-minded mediocrity. They won't detach themselves because they ARE the kind racists that appear in these videos.

Another day in Brexitland.... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6584345/McDonalds-diner-claims-white-men-built-civilisation-slams-immigrants-feminists.html Also, this guy is a dead ringer for (a) Harry Enfield's Mr You-Don't-Wanna-Do-It-Like-That and (b) every 'nativist' on here.

Quite. I think we've just witnessed the launch of a boomerang torpedo.

Good try, badger. But I'm afraid jihadist windbags are incapable of understanding complexity, so this issue gets a regular run-out as an anti-EU bogey man. There are lots of countervailing pressures, both for and against a European military force. One of those has to do with something fundamental not just to the EU's reason for being, but with Britain's interests too. NATO targets of of military spending accounting for two percent of GDP will have no significant effect on the size of the British military. But it would double the size of the German military. This would represent, in effect, a huge German rearmament. Sound familiar? Hence the pressure from the French, among others, to fold German military capability into a wider European one. In Germany, too, there's little appetite for this huge scale of military spending - there is, after all, no Kaiser or Hitler to whip up the kind of sentiment that would lead to this vast expansion. They don't have Gexiters Whether it happens or not - and there's no evidence that it's imminent - it's taken as read that a Euro army is a 'bad thing'. The last thing you're going to get from a Brexit-Jihadist is an actual reasoned argument against the idea of a military force with European command structures. And, true to form, you've had no such argument here.

Not sure why you're so animated. Is Wes Tender one of your residents? Anyway, with Clark's intervention today I'm standing by my long-held opinion that we'll end up with Norway+customs union. Which if course is the best and worst outcome: best, as in the minimal requirement for remoaners,, and worst, because all it is is EU non-membership in the sense that we have no voting rights and no influence.

Trouble is, Al, your anti-Semitic post, and subsequent determination to stand by it, makes this far from a childish issue. The mods on here don't police Jew-hating, nor any amount of racist garbage I've seen on here, but that doesn't mean you're getting a free pass for being a bigot.

A jihadist reposts a yellow-vest unfurling an anti-Semitic banner. What a surprise. Wes Tender must be delighted to have a buddy ready to highlight 'THE Jew' who has brought the New World Order down on his head.

This is correct. A criminal offence is plainly being committed, and to say it's just the use of the word 'Nazi' is disingenuous. Jo Cox was called similar names before a Brexit enthusiast shot and knifed her to death, so I wonder at why the police just stood by, given the precedent. Not surprisingly, they've now been instructed to apply the law. But it's depressing yet predictable that not one single Brexiter on here has condemned the racial abuse experienced by Faisal Islam and Femi Oduwole, and directed at them by a hard core of Yaxley-Lennonite fascists. I suppose it's par for the course in these times, when racist and misogynist abuse has been legitimised. This site has always had its share of racists, but they've always been somewhat coy about declaring their cretinous hands. Until now. Similarly, this site has had a small number of woman haters - one of which, I recall, came on here asking how to beat up his girlfriend after she had decided to dump him, and another who routinely refers to women as 'chicks'. Brexit has merely given these cretins a platform, and depressingly, has also drawn in pensioners and others who, having been inoffensive for years, have suddenly discovered their inner anti-Semite and race-'disliker'.

Calm down Mr Army. You might accidentally issue a fatwa. So where do you stand on abusing black and brown people? Good thing?

Well let's do a bit of totting up. The same group of Yaxley-Lennonites, wearing their yellow vests, have: - refused to allow an ambulance pass over Westminster Bridge, despite its being on an emergency and running blue lights - racially abused an Asian journalist reporting for Sky News - harassed and threatened Anna Soubry - racially abused a remain campaigner, Femi Oluwole, for the offence of being black and wearing a yellow vest If you're proud to be associated with these scumbags, as your avatar suggests you are, that's your choice. But we're then free to conclude that your general argument applies to the racist abuse in particular: that black and brown people should just suck it up when they're abused and threatened. Which would make you just as much a racist thug.

Yet you represent exactly the stale pale constituency I'm talking about. And, by the way, to claim you're not racist, while doubling down on anti-semitic tropes and labelling 'the Arabs' as dislikable, is a stretch. Try this thought experiment. Imagine a re-run referendum split into two. In the first one, only white males over the age of 65 may vote. In the second one, only the under-65s and all women may vote. What do you think the respective results would be? No, it's clear to me, at least, that specifically your objection is in order the banish immigrants. Your warblings about trade show no understanding or inclination to understand what you're talking about. Its a cover for a peevish, age-related 'dislike' of immigrants and foreigners generally.

This is spot on, Jeffrey. Brexit has never been about getting rid of the EU. It's been about getting rid of immigrants. And to do that, an overwhelmingly old, white, male constituency has said it is quite prepared to make other people poorer. (So long as it's just other people, mind.) Their fantasies on the general theme of Unicorn++++++++++ are merely cover, as they plainly known nothing about nor show any interest in actual trade. Witness the stale pale Brexit loons on here.

I didn't ask whether you could throw a hissy fit. We know the answer to that. I asked whether you agreed with Bogdanor's core point and conclusion. To say that 'there are many who are anti-democratic and want a losers' referendum' is to say the exact opposite of Bogdanor's point - yet you produced his article as if it gave your 'position' a ringing endorsement. Once again, here's Bogdanor's conclusion: "Today, similarly, our exit from the EU depends upon the continuing consent of the people. The notion of finality is quite alien to the spirit of democratic politics. For it must always remain open for a sovereign people to reassess its verdict." Do you, or do you not, agree that it 'must remain open for a sovereign people to reassess its verdict'?

Bognanor's conclusion in that article is: "Today, similarly, our exit from the EU depends upon the continuing consent of the people. The notion of finality is quite alien to the spirit of democratic politics. For it must always remain open for a sovereign people to reassess its verdict." Which I presume means you'll now support a second referendum. Or did you not read that bit - you know, the actual point of the article?

Yes, because democracy should never involve voting. That's just something you've made up. No one knew a damned thing about WTO (and the damage that it would cause) at the time of the vote. They didn't even know about Article 50 - I'm not aware of a single debate pre-referendum about how and when it should be triggered. Equally, no one has remotely claimed that Norway is 'in' the EU. Nor Switzerland. And Canada+++ is a pure invention (each plus equal to a virgin).

Objectively, the least damaging way out is to have a People's Vote in which the outcome is to remain in the EU. Even that is not damage-free, because so much harm has already been done. Any other option is unsupported in Parliament (and parliament is sovereign, no matter how much Jihadists mewl and puke about any option that isn't carpet-bombing the economy).

Shylock has much more of an inside track on how this contract came to be (I don't have access to his Rothschild channels), but the obvious explanation is that Failing Grayling's incompetence exceeds any known uselessness found anywhere in the universe. Another could well be that the government knows privately and perfectly well that the whole 'crashing out with no deal' business is a complete and utter sham, played out for fools, so why bother wasting competent civil servants' time on vetting contractors who will never be get their hands on the lolly?

Saint si is right. While the BBC's commitment to impartiality is not easily maintained, especially in a febrile political atmosphere, it is not obvious why 'crashing out of the EU' without a deal is a partial way of expressing it. Nor have you made a case for its being partial. You've just assumed it to be so, because of your Jihadist mindset. Both Remainers and Brexiters have spoken repeatedly about how no deal is a terrible outcome for the British economy. Both sides have referred to this as 'crashing out'. Therefore the BBC may reasonably call it crashing out. Your feeble-minded attempt to exert some sort of language-control, with green-inked whinges to the BBC, won't work.