Brexit: A change of heart??

 

I agree with you that Putin has played a blinder.

 

When I was in Russia a couple of years ago the Russians were telling me that "Putin is a genius".  I didn't pay much attention to the comment at the time, but now I'm thinking they might be right.

 

The last couple of years have definitely gone Putin's way

 

However, that doesn't mean that I think leaving the EU is necessarily the wrong thing for the UK to do.  It's about what's right for the UK, not about what's right or wrong for Putin.

 

She's going to lose.

 

It's what she announces after the vote that's more significant

 

Biggest defeat for a UK government in history!

 

I think that sums up just how bad the Theresa May deal was.

 

Jeremy Corbyn is only interested in Jeremy Corbyn, and not the country.

 

The vote of no confidence in the government is a waste of time.  I expect the government to win, even though, in normal times, a defeat like this would be the end of the government and the Prime Minister, but these are not normal times.

 

What next?  Concessions from the EU?  Unlikely, but you never know.

 

Another referendum?  Highly unlikely in my opinion.

 

An extension of Article 50 beyond 29th March?  Now odds on I would say

 

But if the EU won't play ball then a no deal exit on 29th March looks more and more likely.

 

I'm starting to think what I might need in my Brexit bunker.  Apparently toilet paper could be in short supply... I don't remember that slogan being on the side of a bus

 

I can't think of anything better to do with most of our newspapers

I haven't commented on this here yet but I just add a few words.

1) The referendum voted for Brexit but not for hard Brexit, that was never on the table and may well have lost, so it doesn't make sense to state that this would have been the will of the people. The 52% who voted for Brexit had quite differing ideas of what that actually means.

2) The EU had negotiations with the elected UK government and they have agreed a deal. I don't think the EU can be blamed for not taking into account that UK parliament would not support its own elected government. The government has represented the UK in the negotiations; if their position is not in line with their own parliament, that's a UK issue, not an EU issue, and therefore it is wrong to blame the EU for anything that went wrong here.  If the UK is not happy with the line its own government goes, they better elect another. Boris Johnson had the chance to become PM after Brexit but didn't want to do it, I think he rather wanted to see somebody else fail; I can only hope that the Tories and the UK people don't forget what a snake in the grass he is. He has some major responsibility for the state in which the country is now.

3) My subjective probability for the government to lose the confidence vote today is 65%. I'm really not sure but their majority is wafer thin and it only takes a few votes of people who are rightly embarrassed to let a government go on that was shredded to tears by its own party over months (let alone a coalition partner who never left any doubt that it'd vote the government down on the key issue of their term) and suffered the biggest defeat in history on one of the biggest issues the parliament ever voted on.

4) Not sure whether this was said in this thread but I've heard in many places that the government and the politicians in general let the British people down. Oh well, the British people themselves are of course totally innocent not thinking of Northern Ireland, Scotland, the dealings of Mr Putin and the fact that the EU needs to care for itself rather than being nice to Britain in case Britain leaves, and instead being mesmerised by Mrs Farage and Johnson. Oh and then such a nice riddle of a general election result that would of course have been totally easy to deal with by the politicians, but no, they screwed it up all on their own. Not.

5) I don't expect civil war or anything really disastrous and actually Brexit was not a main reason for my moving to Italy (I give it to the Brexiteers that the rest of the EU is not in the best and most welcoming shape either politically and Italy is surely no exception); however I am rather relieved indeed about not being in the country end March or whenever the moment finally comes.