Hunt is now Foreign Secretary. Will probably start a war to overstretch the NHS and appease his corporate healthcare paymasters.
They get to still sell us Guinness, and we don't shoot them if we catch them on our lawn after 6pm. We still get to do Irishmen jokes, but have to allow leprechauns (or just short Irish men) to kick us in the Lucky Charms in response.
Boris's resignation is mostly quite elegant and describes the situation well. Although it doesn't acknowledge how this stems from his "dream" being total folly.
That entirely depends on if the EU elites continue being Imperialist shitstains or if they eventually bow to reality or not. The reality is they don't give a fuck about North Ireland beyond trying to use it to maintain the EU's horrible protectionist and undemocratic system. The big fear of the protectionist Eurocrats is a rule in the WTO treaty. The WTO says if any member gives a tariff reduction to any other WTO members then it must give the reduction to all. Thus they do not want free trade with the UK or US because then the highly protected EU industries like Cars (10% tariffs), Trucks and heavy machinery (25%), as well as agriculture (legally banned for things like GMO). That would mean their sacred cows would have to face free, fair, and open competition from every WTO member country and they desperately do not want that to happen.
How dare people want to govern themselves and have their government to be responsive to its own citizens/voters. What "folly".
Michael Gove must be furious, having been sent out to defend the policy on Sunday. He did a reasonable job of it with Andrew Marr and then his colleagues go and do this.
Boris gets a photoshoot off himself signing his resignation letter and has it all over the front pages. Classy.....
Well, that's a choice we'd have to make. If you continue the common travel area you basically leave a backdoor for EEA nationals to enter the UK unchecked. Otherwise you'd quite simply have to have a border, not matter how undesirable it is. That's what I am trying to explain above. The leavers had no clue what a clusterfuck they'd voted for because they didn't have a clue about any of these things. So now we have either hard Brexit or what is essentially a downgraded membership of the EU on offer. Neither is satisfactory, but I am forced to think that the more scope and freedoms we have the more we can shape the future. The fact is that if we saty in the single market and customs union it means the free movement of people will continue, and that was a major voting issue for many leavers. Brexit in name only isn't what the leavers voted for.
Of course they won't, and they are well within their rights to shit all over a deal themselves until we pass beyond March 2019. That is, in part, why they have been such cunts to negotiate with. They hold the cards and they know it. That's why it was suicide to trigger Article 50, done purely to appease impatient Brexiteers. As for Parliament saying no, then a new deal would have to be explored. But that is what Brexiteers voted for. Parliamentary sovereignty. Ultimately it's Brexiteers who got us until this complete mess and they're just going to have to suck it up and appreciate that the Parliamentary process is just as much a part of democracy as their referendum was. The irony of course is that if a deal is rejected and time drags on further, Brexiteers have a greater chance of seeing what they want anyway.
It's probably par for the course for him but Donald Trump gave an outrageous interview, suggesting that the UK should push for a hard Brexit to have any chance of a trade deal with the US, and also that Boris Johnson should be PM.
Personally I have no problem with him making these remarks in the sense he has a right to his opinion and to state an opinion on behalf of his country, but what really gets my goat about this is that the interview was timed to go out not only literally just before Theresa May was going to sit down and discuss a trade deal, but while he was getting the red carpet treatment at his hero's birthplace and a day before tea with the Queen. He also insults our country in various other ways in the interview, including London. It's a flat out middle finger to both the Prime Minister and Her Majesty at the precise time they are accommodating him and showing him courtesy, and it's just not acceptable. There's "saying it how it is" and then there's being a flat out disrespectful cunt and this is the latter. Theresa May should grow a pair and play hardball with this wanker. He's just making us look like servile fools. At least the likes of George W. Bush knew how to show a bit of respect. The next time America wants us to join them in a military attack I hope we send them packing.
Farage gets HUGE amounts of airtime over in the States on Fox, and so does scum like Katie Hopkins. Hyper partisan Americans on the right have been encouraged to believe these cunts speak for a significant chunk of Britons.
Remember back a decade ago when it was huge fucking deal that some British people wrote letter to Americans about Bush with posters on here basically saying that was enough reason to vote for him? Now you have the fucking US President giving interviews to tabloids about a close allies domestic politics.
Wasn't there some big uproar when Obama chipped in during the referendum to say he didn't think Brexit was right for the UK? But Farage and co are now fine with a US President telling us how we should act?
May: Soft Brexit or no Brexit. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-warning-Tory-rebels-bully-boys-Brussels.html
You know who else is big on Brexit? Odd that they'd give a bigot like Farage airtime, but have nothing nice at all to say about Assange (at least in the US). I mean, you know, there's definitely been a cozy relationship between the Trumps and Assange, so you'd think that he'd get some kind of reward for that. Then again, maybe it's not all that surprising considering how frequently Trump has been more than happy to stiff folks who've worked for him in the past.
I still say no deal is a better deal as eventually the EU will come crawling back especially after Trump tariffs all EU products in his trade war. They can pretend they won't trade with the UK but watch Germany cave after May announces a 50% tariff on German cars. They will suddenly change their minds and free trade will no longer be such an impossibilty.
So, turns out Trump's advice to May was that she should sue the EU. Does this fucker even HAVE competent lawyers any more?
To be fair to Hunt, one of the reasons he's hated in the NHS was him trying to stop all the arse covering that goes on. The NHS would much prefer to trot out the opt-repeated "lessons have been learned" before going back to gag clauses, grindingly slow justice, lost paperwork and convenient amnesia. You can argue his views on the how he wanted to improve things, but he certainly battled the Exchequer to get funds and had a crack at trying to get GPs to be a little more flexible on opening times - something they were prepared for a long time back, but Labour managed to horrifically balls up in what still remains (although May is having a good show at betteringworsening it) one of the most badly done negotiations ever.
No deal is better than our current bargaining position - I'm pretty sure if I played chess with May, I'd come to the table with her king already on its side - but the EU isn't going to come crawling. Their primary objective is to show that leaving the EU does not place you in a more beneficial position with the EU market, a fully rational and understandable point. They will endure some pain in order to make that point - they already will do with the French manoeuvres over Galileo (basically, they want the French defence industry to have those contracts) which will cost the EU a few billion more, and that's before someone bright realises that maybe pissing off the country who did the encryption probably means you need to redo said encryption. Especially given the UK's history with handing out 'uncrackable' Enigma machines after WW2 and enjoying all that free intel. On the other hand, we've got plenty of ammunition. For example, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, stopping us being a base for smuggled goods going over to the EU. All that lovely coastline, mostly unguarded, with seas filled with fishing vessels who would likely love to make a bit more on the side. Argentinian fizzy wine? Slap a champagne sticker on it, why not! Spain is already a route for rebranded plonk much to the French vintners rage. And there's the fact we provide a lot of military aid and support. The EU would prefer things like the former not to happen, and for the latter to continue, so it's in their interests to give a decent deal if they absolutely must do. They'd like a reasonably bad one if they can manage it, just to hammer home the point, but not to the stage where our actions leave France besieged by its own rural citizens. The EU's biggest problem is they can't negotiate for us. Otherwise we'd likely have something vaguely acceptable to all sides already. I'd like to say I'm stunned we've been so godawful at negotiations, but between a Civil Service shitting itself over leaving (and hence unshielded from criticism, previously content to have Brussels soak all the blame) and the post-Campbell era of piss-poor politicians more concerned with 'optics' and the 'educated' opinions of whichever set of cockwit Public School SpAd pricks they're listening too that week, I really shouldn't be. If your negotiators are starting from the point they don't want to leave, it's not good. It's quite possible we'd have been better of with Farage as the face of the negotating, obnoxious as he is, as he knows the territory, they know his brand of theatrics and something could have been arranged. Between managed outraged about EU demands, and the risk of very public admonishment should the UK be proffering the family silver for little return, he'd probably have been effective at keeping both sides honest, albeit not through the usual medium of competency. Some of the stories coming from across the water hint at the fear in Brussels, they've already opened up that maybe it is their turn to be flexible, and that perhaps they've 'won' too many rounds and if they're not careful they'll be facing the barely-constrained insanity of John McDonnell. May they like - she's one of them, a lover of indecisions, someone who - should making a decision be at all unavoidable - will resort to fudge after fudge. Corbyn would be less palatable. Macron would certainly not like to see France's own left-wingers feel emboldened should the UK have such a PM who speaks off nationalisation. French memories would be stirred. Melenchon would not doubt harken back to the days of Les Trente Glorieuses, conveniently missing out on any Marshall Plan subsidies. Whatever deal we get is as much a minefield for the EU as for the UK. But don't for one moment think they'd come crawling.
A nice analysis but I suspect Trumps trade war could do real damage if not checked by Congress (who seems to be doing nothing meaningful at least in public). There is a real chance for a global recession so it becomes a lot harder to ignore Germany's largest export market (the UK) when they already have an economy in the tank. I truly believe such an event would clarify their minds and make them realize free trade is a good idea after all especially if the alternative if the UK deciding to import Asian cars instead.
Three days after publishing her plan, May is very adamant that it isn't dead. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/07/16/world/europe/16reuters-britain-eu-may-deal.html
