Jacob Rees-Mogg tweets,
If a long extension leaves us stuck in the EU we should be as difficult as possible We could veto any increase in the budget, obstruct the putative EU army and block Mr Macronâs integrationist schemes.
The Independent reports that the EU has slapped him down:
Brussels has slapped down Jacob-Rees Mogg after the leading Brexiteer suggested the UK should wilfully cause chaos at the EU institutions if Brexit was delayed.
Mr Rees-Mogg will be pleased his threat has got through to its intended audience.
A spokesperson for the European Commission suggested that the Tory MP was essentially irrelevant and not involved in negotiations.
No one said he was involved in negotiations. He is suggesting a course of action to be applied by newly elected Eurosceptic Conservative, UKIP or Brexit Party MEPs when and if they find themselves elected to the EU Parliament. Jacob Rees-Mogg is famously mild mannered. The type of candidates elected by a massive bloc of voters who have just had it demonstrated to them that voting does not work are likely to be less so.
Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliamentâs Brexit coordinator, also piled in. Seizing on Mr Moggâs comments, he said: âFor those in the EU who may be tempted to further extend the Brexit saga, I can only say, be careful what you wish for.â
Mr Verhofstadt is correct.
Edit: in the comments – OK, in the comment – Stonyground asks a very good question: “As I understand it, the EU parliament has very limited powers. How much trouble could the awkward squad realistically cause?”
Going by recent dramas in the Mother of Parliaments, quite a bit if they place their votes with ruthless indifference to the merits of the motion in whatever way will lead to stalemate.
There is also something to be said for complete randomness. And it’s “plobble”. (Slaps self round side of head.) What I meant was they could vote with the extreme Right on Monday, the Extreme Left on Tuesday and with an unconventional part of their anatomy on Wednesday.
As I understand it, the EU parliament has very limited powers. How much trouble could the awkward squad realistically cause?
Pathetic weakness from JRM. DUP/ERG vote of NC and bring Treason May down. Yes it has a risk of Corbin. But if the bitch is making him deputy PM the fucker is on his way already.
Is something stopping the UK from simply unilaterally leaving the EU and telling them to pound sand?
What’s Brussels going to do, invade? Declare a blockade?
Unfortunately, Sigi, you’d have to get Parliament to cut bait and Exit. Period. But Parliament has apparently been unwilling to do that for lo! these last two years, just as, when they were kiddies, they refused to eat their spinach. Perhaps if you had a bear to pursue them….
But then, it sounds as if Mr Rees-Mogg is trying to drum one up. (Or, preferably, several.)
Jacob gets it.
“Is something stopping the UK from simply unilaterally leaving the EU and telling them to pound sand?”
Yes. They want a trade deal with Europe.
Both major UK political parties are full of and funded by protectionists. They think the EU membership is good for the industries and jobs of the countries inside it. They want/need a deal that allows tariff-free trade with Europe. Even a lot of the Brexiteers want free trade both with and outside Europe, along with more political independence. To get that, they need a deal.
The basic problem is that after the referendum the electorate abandoned UKIP and went back to voting Tory, so they got the Tory Protectionist we-want-a-deal version of Brexit rather than the UKIP out-at-any-costs version. This is what we voted for.
The no-deal option was voted on in Parliament and rejected. There’s nothing the EU could do to stop a ‘no deal’, it’s entirely a British decision.
I’m not sure the electorate were ever quite “with UKIP”, as such, other than about 7 blokes in Thurrock.
I’m also unsure what was voted for, given that it wasn’t made clear. Deal or no-deal, that’s very much up for grabs, and we were promised both. Even JRM suggested a second referendum once the outcome was clear.
I personally think that understanding what was voted for is key. At the moment, everyone (hard Brexiters, soft-Brexiters, Remainers) are all shouting into the void about the will of people, which (beyond the closeness of the vote) has been very unclear.
(I’ve been thinking about how we achieve “unity of purpose”. What with it being only seven pm on a Friday, I’m not drunk yet, but only tipsy, and am considering that maybe talking and getting more info across the board could be sensible)
neonsnake: “Iâve been thinking about how we achieve âunity of purposeâ”
That is the conversation that should have take place following the narrow victory in the 2016 Referendum — if the separatists had not been in such a triumphalist mood. Still, better late than never.
If all separation means is that it is punters in Westminster rather than in Brussels who dictate that all Brits will now have 5 wheelie-bins instead of 4, the exercise may not have been worthwhile. The whole topic of what separation means is really complex in this inter-connected world. Tom Brown in his book “Tragedy & Challenge” notes the case of the car manufacturer in northern England who had to shut down for 6 months after the tsunami in Japan because the supply chain is global. Meaningful separation may require sacrificing some of the economic benefits of globalization and international trade — which would be great, if a substantial majority of citizens are prepared to pay that price.
Gavin, this is absolutely correct.
I don’t remember the exact quote, but it’s something about exchanging a tyrant 3000 miles away for 300 tyranta 100 miles away. It’s not a great result, either way.
The problem, as I see it, is uncertainty. We don’t know what’s going on. You called for unity in another post, I think, but we don’t have something to unite behind – not yet.
It’s a painful process, and it’s resulted in job losses already in my business (and it’s a business that those in the UK will know the name of). But we need certainty!
To paraphrase Orwell…where’s my omelette?
If all separation means is that it is punters in Westminster rather than in Brussels who dictate that all Brits will now have 5 wheelie-bins instead of 4, the exercise may not have been worthwhile.
Simply wrong!
The elected busy bodies and parasites in Westminster can be voted out. Indeed, as the Tories may be about to discover, parties can fall from power and even significance. By contrast, in Brussels, the bureaucratic machine rolls on, as it was designed to. The fake European parliament can dismiss the Commission, but in reality that is just theatre. In the shadows, the European nomenklatura continue with the intentionally anti-democratic project of European union.
The philosophy of it is called neo-functionalism: the incremental transfer of power from national democratic control to supra-national technocratic (ie bureaucratic) control. The mentality behind it is totalitarian.
Except they won’t. I would love this to be true, except that it’s not.
What will we vote for instead? Labour? Lib Dems? Green? UKIP (*spits*)?
Gavin is correct.
Not ideal, but factually accurate.
I’m far more interested in accurate than ideal.
Genuinely sorry for your / your associates economic pain and uncertainties.
When we kept the pound back in the 90s / early 2000s we guaranteed we would eventually diverge from the EU.
The failure of Britain’s economy under the ERM cost lots of money to many people and proved our economy can’t run in lockstep with EU.
The cost of staying would have meant pain in your company in the end.
Dragging out stabilisation in the new steady economic state divorced from the EU will cause far more pain than a quick cleanly delivered independence ever would.
Thank Theresa.
Anytime you can wipe out layers of government – especially if you’re wiping out far-away and disinterested-in-you layers who are unresponsive to your vote – you’re coming out ahead.
Keeping layers in place simply because the top layer is presently occupied by people less horrid than some in lower layers is short-sighted. Get rid of layers, and then start working on what remains.
Aetius: “Simply wrong! The elected busy bodies and parasites in Westminster can be voted out.”
Let’s hope you are right. It is going to require a lot of newcomers to step forward and devote substantial efforts over significant periods of time to clean out the deadwood in Westminster and initiate fundamental reform.
bobby b — we are in compete agreement about aiming to simplify government, remove layers, make it smaller, more local, and more focused. But the County Commission in my US County is Exhibit A in the case that more local does not automatically mean more responsive and better. It is also worth noting that elected busy bodies in countries like Hungary and Poland seem to do a much better job of drawing lines with the EU than the tossers in Westminster. Why are Eastern European politicians able to outperform their UK peers? How to improve the performance of UK politicians post-separation?
Longmuir/snake–Remainiac crap. Bins are just the surface cockrot. The EU are part of the globo-wannabe-elite–and they don’t share power. They intend– as Macron shows–to use greenfreak and any other bullshit pretext to impoverish ordinary folk so we can’t fight back against their tinpot tyranny. Their plans are nasty indeed–they will boss how or if you breathe before they finish.
You can also stuff your “unity” crap as well. There is no compromise with those who crawl to kiss the arse of tyranny. Your smug wheelie-bins tripe gives the measure of what a clever fellow you fancy yourself as. I’d rather have a civil war and a chance to remove the smugness from the likes of you permanently.
Jeez–he’s not even British–“my US County”. Improve UK politicians –we need to hang a few.
Thank you, Mr. Ecks, for raising the tone of the discussion. đ
đ
@bobby b
Anytime you can wipe out layers of government â especially if youâre wiping out far-away and disinterested-in-you layers who are unresponsive to your vote â youâre coming out ahead.
I’m not sure I agree with that. The idea of federalism is, by one measure, the more layers the better, as long as they have separate legal remits. The problem with the EU is the same as the problem in the US, it is not that there are many layers, on the contrary, it is that all the power has been sucked up to the top layer and the lower layers are little more than symbolic rubber stampers, or vassals of their princely overlords.
Neonsnake April 5, 2019 at 6:08 pm
I think that I understood very well what voting leave meant.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zNnh-KhiLm0
What could be clearer?
Given Mr. Cameron’s clarity, I charitably assume any ignorance on the subject is feigned.
I very much thank Theresa for it.
It’s not Brexit itself that’s causing job losses (largely), it’s the inability to plan, given that we’ve no idea what to plan for, and the fluctuations in sterling – which are caused by the uncertainty.
(I voted Leave)
Dogleg4
I completely agree, and I believe that nearly all Leavers agreed that it meant leaving the single market (I guess some wanted Norway option? Iâd guess very few though)
What I was talking about upthread was whether people voted for deal or no-deal, and that remains unclear.
I voted Leave, not Remain.
I’ve been keen, for quite a while, on annual elections of part (at least) of the UK parliament/government.
If some people are keen on a re-vote, I’m keen to support them: if and only if that re-vote is the first of ongoing annual elections of parts of parliament (and possibly including direct election of an executive prime minister).
And with annual elections, parliament/government would be too busy trying to please the electorate for there to be the sort of stupidity we are currently experiencing.
Best regards
I’m enjoying the increasingly desperate Remainer attempts to avert Brexit.
Our relationship with the EU has been soured for good, and there is no going back from such a situation.
The Remainers are simply clinging on to dim hopes like a spouse who refuses to be dumped.
They didn’t have the common sense to accept reality and to stay quiet and dignified.
But that’s hardly surprising. All their behaviour during the people’s vote campaign of 2016 until the present day has been characterised by anger, bitterness, intolerance and irrationality.
“Iâd rather have a civil war…”
Go on then Mr. Big Talker, no one is stopping you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYy77IGsBFc
@ Sigivald, the only obstacle lies in the lack of Political will.
May could have us out in a trice if she showed determination in that cause.
Parliament could force her hand, or replace her, if that was their will, but they haven’t.
If/when the will is there the EU would/will have to pound sand.
Staghounds–And what’s your excuse Yank–you have all the guns.
âThe idea of federalism is, by one measure, the more layers the better, as long as they have separate legal remits. The problem with the EU is the same as the problem in the US, it is not that there are many layers, on the contrary, it is that all the power has been sucked up to the top layer and the lower layers are little more than symbolic rubber stampers, or vassals of their princely overlords.â.
And the problems with the EU, unlike the US, are that a) that top layer is almost completely anti-democratic (the âparliamentâ has essentially the same advisory role as the House of Lords, while the Councils – âelectedâ at second- or third-hand, and thus really representing the states, as in the original US Senate, not the people – are, with the occasional exception, a charade, with the vast majority of EU law being Commission Regulations and Directives), and b) this arrangement, a corruption of the US Founding Fathers’ intent, is, in the EU, entirely by design. The European Project is essentially a technocratic one, its founders believing that real power should be in the hands of Experts, not the people, who… well, don’t know what they’re voting for. It came as absolutely no surprise to any student of EU history that this claim was pretty much first out of the blocks after the Brexit vote. It is, fundamentally, the Europhiles’ core belief.
Also, what pete said. Good comment.
If Brexit gets shot down/really watered down, having the UK in the EU is going to be a lot like having the ultimate “crazy” girlfriend. Depending on what factions are on top in the UK at the moment, or what the policy issue is, Britain will be sweet and seductive, or a raging bull-in-the-china-shop.
You can say that Brexit let loose a bunch of demons or opened Pandora’s box in UK politics, but perhaps those demons should have been let loose. The EU needs to deal with a lot of the issues that Brexit brought to the fore, from the effects of freedom of movement to the EU’s inveterate corporatism to its fixation on process, even if the process occasionally leads to damnation.
Maybe Queen, Elizabeth Regina, I mean, can tweet something?
itâs the inability to plan, given that weâve no idea what to plan for,
Isn’t that the whole idea of totalitarian bureaucratism …
Your life isn’t yours
I am confident that fewer people in your country will die from leaving the EU than died in my country, the USA, when we left the UK with no deal.
Theresa will be to the conservative party what Obama was for the democrats.
We voted for independence almost THREE YEARS ago – there is no excuse, none, for the United Kingdom to still be under the rule of the European Union now.
Anyone who continues to support the rule of the European Union over the British people, for example under the sell out surrender “deal” of Mrs May, is an opponent of the liberty of the British people. These “Remainers” (open or hidden) must be defeated, or democracy has become a LIE. A fig leaf covering a Corporatist (FASCIST) State.
The last few years have been very educational.
Not so very long ago I considered myself a soft-Brexiteer. Whilst I remain of the view that the EFTA/EEA route would be suitable for the UK, it seems clear now that this ‘EU without the politics’ route is not going to be allowed for the UK. The Withdrawal Agreement is so soft it makes EFTA/EEA look extremely hard in comparison. Similar, although perhaps even less understandable, is the fierce resistance to Donald Trump’s extremely milquetoast agenda.
What we must not do, assuming we ever do leave the EU, is rush into joining lots of multilateral treaties. If these do not yet include a number of clauses in respect of climate change, workers rights, respecting women, then no doubt these will be added shortly (perhaps on the UK’s initiative!)
Unfortunately free trade agreements is now being used as a lever by the “globalists” SJWs to spread Frankfurt school stuff. It’s a sad day when a libertarian cannot identify as a globalist. But unfortunately economic and social liberty is now to an extent at odds with eachother. I’d rather be alone and free than with company (but no friends?)and enslaved.
“The basic problem is that after the referendum the electorate abandoned UKIP …”
No. UKIP abandoned the electorate.
Before the Referendum was even held, I asked someone very close to the UKIP leadership what the plans were if there was a Leave vote? What do you see as the purpose of the party? I was told to wait & see. I’m still waiting.
This whole mess is the result of the middle-class, public school & university intellectualism that infests much of British politics. Treating it like it’s a debating society or a cricket match. Where players play by the rules & losers lose gracefully. I’ve news for you. It isn’t. It’s a streetfight where low blows & cunning triumph.
UKIP needed to be ready to shepherd a Leave result right through until a Leave. That a section of the political & administrative class were going to try to sabotage Brexit was obvious even before the referendum. The government itself published a leaflet advising against a Leave vote. Did you really think they were going to take you ignoring their advice? May lied, they all lied & got on with sabotaging what you voted for. Bent & broke every rule in the book. Leave voters needed their decision to be forced through by fair means of foul & all the people representing their interests could do was play childish games of democracy. Democracy was the Leave vote. Democracy was thrown out the window the moment it was delivered. And now you’re very unlikely to get it back again.
Nullius in Verba (April 5, 2019 at 5:56 pm), the electorate’s ‘abandonment’ of UKIP, though helped by UKIP having leadership problems, was the predictable result of Leave’s win. The Tories held the referendum to solve their UKIP problem and, despite the Tory establishment not liking the result, at first acted – convincing almost all on this blog, and almost all UKIP voters – that they would keep the many solemn emphatic promises they made.
I would rather agree with bloke in spain (April 10, 2019 at 5:20 am). UKIP’s strategy should have been to hold themselves ready for the possibility of betrayal, while pushing the many areas in which – as some on this blog have noted – Brexit was merely the chance to confront our problems, not in itself a solution of them. (That was, IIUC, Farage’s suggestion when he resigned the leadership. I quite sympathise with his longing to quit leading the party but things would be better placed now if he had stayed.) UKIP have done a poor job (to be fair, other parties are hardly in a position to reproach them) and now the question of who will stand against any non-deselected Tory promise-breaker MPs is in danger of being a mess, not a point of unity.