Theresa May, former UK Prime Minister

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Deliverance said:
What would a second referendum even look like? What would be on the ballot? Couldn't be a simple stay or leave, because no one knows what leave looks like.
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With May surviving, it could be May’s plan vs staying. May’s plan won’t get through Parliament right now but a referendum endorsing it would force the Parliament’s hand. Or they stay.
 
JackOutback said:
With May surviving, it could be May’s plan vs staying. May’s plan won’t get through Parliament right now but a referendum endorsing it would force the Parliament’s hand. Or they stay.
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Do you think that will appease them, or will we just end up with hard liners saying the 2nd referendum is not the will of the people because the only two options were Mays plan and stay?
 
Deliverance said:
Do you think that will appease them, or will we just end up with hard liners saying the 2nd referendum is not the will of the people because the only two options were Mays plan and stay?
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Fair point; I just think there are a lot of people looking for a way out of Brexit right now. Maybe it could be a simple stay or leave as people know this is the best deal the EU is offering so staying means May’s plan or a harder Brexit. A line has to be drawn somewhere, the hardliners can’t keep claiming there’s lots of different options for Brexit when the EU has said there’s not.
 
JackOutback said:
Fair point; I just think there are a lot of people looking for a way out of Brexit right now. Maybe it could be a simple stay or leave as people know this is the best deal the EU is offering so staying means May’s plan or a harder Brexit. A line has to be drawn somewhere, the hardliners can’t keep claiming there’s lots of different options for Brexit when the EU has said there’s not.
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Yep, they're in a ****ed up spot whichever way they go now
 
Rotayjay said:
I don't agree with her politics generally, and her handling of Brexit has not achieved anything yet. But I do admire Theresa May for one thing: she voluntarily took on the impossible task, a political kamakaze mission where no one would be completely satisfied no matter what she does.

She's been pilloried by every party in the parliament, the public, and the leaders of the continent from which she is trying to get a divorce. There may or may not be someone else who could do better, but her job is a Herculean clusterf*** and she hasn't given up.
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It's gone badly in part because of her. Ignored anyone who said soft Brexit was a good idea. Triggered Article 50 and the 2 year clock apparently without realising that would work against her. In those 2 years squandered her time with an election (and lost her majority).

A Prime Minister who was putting the UK ahead of their own whiny little bitch party and getting to lead it would've gone for a slow, methodical, thought out exit planned 5-10 years ahead. Not rushed everything at the end and hope she could force everybody to agree with her. Brexit needed to be demolishing a house by carefully removing each brick.
 
Jeez these mouthy Tory types like Johnson and Abbott really are full of piss and wind.

Challenging and failing to get your man up. Lol.
 
Hank Scorpion said:
Obviously these brexiteers will all quietly respect the will of 63% of their MPs and do absolutely nothing to undermine or overturn the result in future...
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The majority of members of the Conservative Party want her gone - hence her 'concession' to not lead the party at the next election.

Remember that it was the grassroots that got Corbyn in, not the Labour MPs.
 

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2018 highs and lows: Theresa May's 'no-Brexit' miscalculation

Monday, 24 December 2018 8:30 AM

By Jonathan Lis

Low: Chequers

If 2016 was the year that Brexit was born, and 2017 was the year the government sent its delusions out into the world, then 2018 has been the year those dreams became slowly, predictably punctured. The EU has delivered its verdict and the truth has taken its course.

Amid a smorgasbord of humiliations, lies and defeats, my low point was the Chequers summit on July 6th. For the first time, the government committed to paper and policy just how absurd, preposterous and dishonest it really was.

Let's remind ourselves of the context. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 referendum, the government and civil service - which on the orders of the preternaturally responsible and humble David Cameron had done absolutely no planning for a Brexit result - had to start from scratch.

Zealous convert Theresa May promised that Brexit meant Brexit, and her moronic accomplice David Davis guaranteed that we would implement a trade deal "a nanosecond" after leaving. (Yes, really.) Just one problem: the government spent literally two years negotiating that trade deal not with the EU but with itself. By the time it finally got around to deciding what it wanted, it was not only 15 months into the 24-month Article 50 process, but much too late to determine anything meaningful before our departure.

Brexit posed two intractable problems - how to keep the Irish border open and how to leave the single market without destroying the economy. Chequers' two solutions eschewed any acknowledgement of real-world politics and technology for a comforting adventure novel of British supremacy and science fiction.

On the Irish border, we were to collect the EU's tariffs for them while inventing a magical way of avoiding rules-of-origin checks. For the single market, we'd take on board everything the EU had told us for two years about not cherry-picking the four freedoms while simultaneously asking to retain just the free movement of goods.

Once the document emerged, it of course imploded.

Chequers was such a defining catastrophe of post-war British statecraft that it managed to combust two sets of fantasies: those of the hardliners and those of the pragmatists. It was too much integration for the likes of Davis and too much cakeism for the EU. We simply did not have the political capital to make such demands. Chequers thus irreversibly unmasked the reality of Britain's mediocre power. Brussels said it could not accept it, and it meant it. The summit also put to bed any lingering fantasy that Brexit might be delivered without a massive cost to either our prosperity or sovereignty or both. The government was finally exposed and has never recovered.

High: May's conference speech

And so to the high point. For me - hear me out - it was May's speech to the Conservative party conference on October 3rd. Obviously, this being a May speech, it was decked with enough lies to set fire to a pants factory, but the speech was memorable for the moment the prime minister told the truth. She said: "If we don't [come together] – if we all go off in different directions in pursuit of our own visions of the perfect Brexit - we risk ending up with no Brexit at all."

Almost unacknowledged at the time, that line has proven to be dynamite. Although May had no intention of doing so, she empowered and normalised an idea which had been a marginal joke for two years: that we might actually remain in the EU after all. The People's Vote campaign had launched, amid fanfare, in April, and had been slowly gathering momentum and support. But the government had barely acknowledged its existence and May had certainly never conceded even the possibility that its aims might be realised.

In the three months since the speech, 'no Brexit at all' has transformed from a remote dream to solid political option. More and more MPs declare that a second referendum (with the option to remain) might prove the only way out this unprecedented national fiasco. The EU is factoring it into its planning. The Irish ambassador says, on the record, "when and if Britain leaves". EU leaders openly welcome the chance we might change our minds. All of this would have been unthinkable this time last year.

Of course, May had a reason for mentioning 'no Brexit'. She wanted to terrify and blackmail Brexiters into endorsing her abysmal withdrawal agreement. But she could not stop others hearing her. In legitimising the People's Vote movement, she just enabled it. As this crisis rumbles on towards March and possibly beyond, the voices to remain in the EU are going nowhere.

In 2016, Britain subsumed itself to Brexit in a violent fusion of policy and fantasy. It effectively became Brexit. But in 2018 those entanglements were torn open. In 2019 we must finally wrench them apart and return Britain, if nowhere else, to reality.

http://politics.co.uk/comment-analy...d-lows-theresa-may-s-no-brexit-miscalculation
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Theresa May faced cross-party calls to sack her transport secretary, Chris Grayling, last night, after the calamitous collapse of a no-deal Brexit ferry contract handed to a company with no ships.

Senior Tories said the prime minister had turned “a blind eye” to Grayling’s decision to award the £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight to run ferries between Ramsgate and Ostend, despite widespread derision and accusations that it had been awarded illegally.

The collapse of the contract comes amid growing unease in the international business community about Britain’s preparedness for a no-deal outcome, with less than 50 days until Brexit is due to take place.

Several MPs suggested Grayling should now consider his position after his department revealed the contract had been cancelled, and Bob Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, said the saga would “just confirm the view of many that this country is in a mess”.

Anna Soubry, a former Tory business minister, said Grayling “should be quietly considering his position”.

“Chris Grayling holds a critical position in government, trying to mitigate what would be a very serious crisis for the country if we leave the European Union without a deal,” she said. “He has no grip on the very serious nature of his job. The prime minister should also be considering whether there is not someone else who could do the job better.”

Another senior Tory MP said Grayling was a “walking disaster zone”, adding: “A no-deal Brexit would be a major national crisis and stories like this suggest we have not got the people in place who are capable of responding to it.”

Another said: “Grayling never has a grip on the detail, as the Seaborne mess shows. His Heathrow proposal will be just the same but way more costly. The PM just turns a blind eye, for some reason.”

[...]

The Department for Transport said the deal was terminated after Irish company Arklow Shipping, which had backed Seaborne, stepped away from the deal. “It became clear Seaborne would not reach its contractual requirements,” a spokeswoman said. “We have therefore decided to terminate our agreement.”

Having awarded the contract to a company without ships, the deal with Seaborne descended further into farce when it emerged the company had copied terms and conditions from what appeared to be a pizza delivery company onto its website.

Several weeks later, the transport select committee published correspondence with Grayling in which he brushed off allegations that the government may have acted illegally by failing to put the deal out to tender.

Lilian Greenwood, the committee’s Labour chair, said the government “should be embarrassed about how this tale is unfolding”. She added: “We must also remember the bigger question we raised, about whether any of the ferry contracts are legal. Grayling’s answer was inadequate and ignored the legitimate concerns.”

Lord Kerslake said “severe damage” had already been done to the UK’s international standing and influence as a result of the Brexit vote. “This appalling saga will confirm the view of many that this country is in a mess,” he said. “However committed and able civil servants are they cannot substitute for effective political leadership.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/politic...y-fiasco-seaborne-freight-transport-secretary
 
Bomberboyokay said:
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...y-fiasco-seaborne-freight-transport-secretary
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Lord Kerslake said “severe damage” had already been done to the UK’s international standing and influence as a result of the Brexit vote. “This appalling saga will confirm the view of many that this country is in a mess,” he said. “However committed and able civil servants are they cannot substitute for effective political leadership.”

Sir Humphrey just rolled over in his grave.
 
So when committing to a vote on brexit, the government made no investigation into how a yes vote might work out?

They really are drinking their own bath water.
 
Pessimistic said:
No surprises the snouts in the trough are quietly seeking to personally profit from the unnecessary havoc which will ensue
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Oh wait, guess what else Chris Grayling had his cack hand in?

https://www.theguardian.com/society...isation-of-probation-sector-is-a-mess-mps-say

Probation system privatisation supposed to “drive efficiency” brings about overspends and 500 mil GBP in bailouts or “contract renegotiations”.

The guy is a *up of unbelievable proportions.
 
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