A change of leadership

[Suff]

And a change of the rhetoric in the EU.

Unfortunately the move from the hardline stance of "No extension without a referendum or GE", to "Well if you are going to leave without a deal, of course we will extend", may be significant. But it is totally missing the point. The very LAST thing the next PM will want it more time. They don't want the EU to give more time to allow them to self destruct totally and a GE to happen. They want the EU to come to the table and accept that what the EU wants and what the EU is going to get, are not one and the same. Then they want the EU to start negotiating.

Otherwise we will leave with no deal.

All the EU need to do is listen to what is being said and to understand the situation.

Notably they are not listening. Have not listened. Have never listened. Which is why the UK and the EU are at this impasse today. The situation has never changed, they only listen when the barrel of the gun is at their head, the slack is taken up on the trigger and there is no other thing to listen to.

[cromwell]

Any further delay in leaving will just be met with sighs and / or the grinding of teeth.
Half the country will see it as a further cop out designed to keep us in, and the other half will see it as the only sensible option - ie, keeping us in.

It would have been nice to have had a friendly divorce but the shifty leadership of May and the civil service, neither of whom wished to leave the EU, have left us in this mess.

I can't honestly blame the EU for this. Their position is clear. They don't want people to leave the EU. If they do leave, why give them a wonderful deal for doing so? There's no sense in that, from their point of view. Economically damaging for both sides? Yes, but the EU has always been at least as much about politics as it has been about economics, something which British media has always ignored and continues to ignore. And the politics is, more EU, more integration, more federalism. If you bail out from that you are going against everything the EU was founded for. It won't (to put it mildly) be popular with them.

The UK or more specifically the Conservative party, have dropped us in it. If you offer a referendum on such an important subject, you should at least have some plan for the resulting fall out. What was clear from the day after the referendum was that neither side did. Remain had no plan for losing; leave had no plan for winning.

It comes down to David Cameron.
He thought he was on a roll.
He had managed to head off Scottish independence in 2014.
He won a majority in the 2015 general election, when all the polls said there was going to be a hung parliament.
He must have thought he was the man. The man who was going to once and for all settle the matter of the UK and the EU, to stop his own party "banging on" about Europe.
A fairly major miscalculation, we'll say.

Three years on and we're not further forward which is a scandal, quite heroically incompetent really.

[medsec222]

David Cameron put the ball in motion but he didn't have the guts to see it through. Despite her strong words, with hindsight I think it was always Theresa May's intention to take the middle course and keep those around her out of the loop until she had secured her deal. Well that didn't work.

[Workingman]

They don't want the EU to give more time to allow them to self destruct totally and a GE to happen.

What's this? The new PM and his band of Brexiteers will self-destruct and we plebs get a GE? Ooh yes please, bring it on! Do it sharpish lads, the good weather is about to begin.

Jeremy, Ian, get those no confidence motion(s) papers printed. Phil, David and Rory will help with the wording to bring some of the 'others' on side.

Ursula, budge up girl, we have big elbows and there's work to be done.

[Suff]

Oh I didn't mean the Brexiteers self destructing, I meant Parliament across all parties.

[Workingman]

The very LAST thing the next PM will want it more time.

That's not parliament, but the government. It's BoZo and the Loons who will self-destruct... then we can move on, hopefully with a multi-party hung parliament, where there has to be give and take and the new MPs have to act like responsible adults.

Then we can move on to proper PR where all factions - left, right and middle - get a voice, even if it is only a whisper for some.

[medsec222]

A multi-party hung Parliament Frank? I think that is a recipe for more of the same. Maybe a short sharp shock is the answer. It can't be any worse than the three years of dithering we have all endured.

[Workingman]

Sorry Meds, I was talking way out of the Brexit box and looking to the future.

The two party and bit part player system is on it knees and we need change.

[AliasAggers]

I still think that IF we could get the right person,
a dictatorship would be far better than this farce we call democracy.

[Workingman]

I still think that IF we could get the right person,
a dictatorship would be far better than this farce we call democracy.

So long as it's your sort of dictatorship, eh, one that agrees with your views. But what if s/he's not your sort of dictator, one that disagrees with you, that'll be fine will it? Will you be supremely happy with a dictator who is against your views>?

Just to add and to be clear, my reply is not aimed at Aggers, I am using "your" as a pronoun for all of us. Dictators are often supported by large sections of their fellow countrymen and women, but they are almost always a threat to life and limb of those who disagree with them. We often joke about having a benign dictator, but deep down we know that no such person exists.