May on the way??

[Essex Vale]

RB said "She had the mandate, she had the will of the people and she has stabbed us in the back."

 

I replied, "She didn't actually but the DUP, the ERG, the SNP and the Labour Party did. They were the ones who refused to accept any Brexit deal."

 

My "she didn't" was a reference to stabbing in the back, not the lack of a mandate. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

 

Thanks for the clarification. I chuckled at your use of the word if. In this media we have all made points that were not perceived as we intended. Even poor old Theresa May may sometimes (but not often) have experienced this. The question now, is who succeeds her?

[Santa]

She would argue that she put a deal on the table.

 

It was a bad one, obviously, but that's the reality. It was a deal. Of sorts.

 

If No Deal was objectively such a good thing there's no reason why she wouldn't have done it. It would have been a lot more easy for her to have just let the country crash out at the end of March.

[Joe B]

As he sold it at the market bottom it was a massively bad deal.

 

If he wasn't in politics for his own financial gain I assume he never claimed expenses, refused any pay rises and worked for free, never went anywhere that cost the public purse any money, wrote any memoirs for payment etc....... he must be one of those rich gits people seem to condemn.

 

You've misunderstood.

 

The Gold selling was bad.

 

However, in the grand scheme of leadership, it is small fry, especially considering he navigated us through a global recession, which could have turned to a depression had the G20 not backed his Quantitative Easing strategy.

 

Gold was bad. However, people seem to be bloody obsessed with it. It really isn't that big of a deal, and hasn't impacted our nation in any way. It cost the taxpayer approx £3 billion, which is around 0.0001% of our GDP. A blunder, but something that has been magnified by people who wouldn't otherwise be bothered about gold reserves, because the Daily Mail told them to be outraged.

 

If costing the country £3 billion is a cataclysmic mistake, lets try and ignore the £66 billion the Brexit vote has cost the UK economy in reduced growth and weaker sterling, shall we? Bearing in mind, we're still yet to actually change our economic relationship in any way, shape or form. (variety of sources below, will happily provide more if the Financial Times, the Guardian, or the Centre for Economic Policy Research are too 'fake news' for you).

 

https://www.ft.com/content/dfafc806-762d-11e8-a8c4-408cfba4327c

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/29/britain-bill-brexit-hits-500-million-pounds-a-week

 

https://voxeu.org/article/rising-brexit-uncertainty-has-reduced-investment-and-employment

 

Of course, that £3bn Brown cost us is the real issue. Boo, Gordon.

[RailwayRowdy]

I was never a huge fan of Gordon Brown, but history will judge him more kindly as the months and years roll on.

 

If you had to rank all the Prime Ministers in order, then Brown would have moved two places up the table during the last decade.

 

If a league table of British Prime Ministers was to be drawn up, then all would be comfortably above rank bottom of the table Alec Douglas Home.

 

Highly respected political commentator Anthony Howard once commented that every day Home was Prime Minister,”I woke up ashamed to be British”

 

I don’t think he rated him too highly !

[Joe B]

What I really cannot stand is the adamant bleating about things like the selling of the gold being bad for the economy, and then the exact same people choosing to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Brexit has had a negative impact on the UK economy already, which will exacerbate in the case of a harder Brexit.

 

There's no opinion to it. Google the value of the Sterling. Click '5 years'. Look at the drop we've come nowhere near to recovering from, which conveniently occurred in June 2016. Did something happen?

 

I can deal with sovereignty arguments, but when Brexit supporters start using the health of the economy in political arguments, I struggle to rationalise the lack of consistency. The sovereignty crusade you're embarking on is having a real, literal, impact on the economy as we speak, as the Government admit, as every economist admits, and as the raw stats of the economy admits.

 

Baffling. A rant but please utilise a bit of consistency. If the economy is that important to you, you wouldn't be supporting Brexit.

[Paul6754]

What I really cannot stand is the adamant bleating about things like the selling of the gold being bad for the economy, and then the exact same people choosing to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Brexit has had a negative impact on the UK economy already, which will exacerbate in the case of a harder Brexit.

 

There's no opinion to it. Google the value of the Sterling. Click '5 years'. Look at the drop we've come nowhere near to recovering from, which conveniently occurred in June 2016. Did something happen?

 

I can deal with sovereignty arguments, but when Brexit supporters start using the health of the economy in political arguments, I struggle to rationalise the lack of consistency. The sovereignty crusade you're embarking on is having a real, literal, impact on the economy as we speak, as the Government admit, as every economist admits, and as the raw stats of the economy admits.

 

Baffling. A rant but please utilise a bit of consistency. If the economy is that important to you, you wouldn't be supporting Brexit.

 

Brexit causing a decrease in the value of the pound has been made before, it was predicted by the money men and it happened. However, Brexiteers on OVF still do not accept it even though the pound vs dollar was effectively devalued on the day of the referendum and fell beforehand with the looming vote and uncertainty of Brexit. Someone at the bank of England/Treasurey is doing a tremendous job in keeping interest rates and inflation in the UK in check at the moment.

 

A successful UK economy is key for everyone in the UK, it shouldn't be put a risk, ever.

[geosname]

What I really cannot stand is the adamant bleating about things like the selling of the gold being bad for the economy, and then the exact same people choosing to ignore the overwhelming evidence that Brexit has had a negative impact on the UK economy already, which will exacerbate in the case of a harder Brexit.

 

There's no opinion to it. Google the value of the Sterling. Click '5 years'. Look at the drop we've come nowhere near to recovering from, which conveniently occurred in June 2016. Did something happen?

 

I can deal with sovereignty arguments, but when Brexit supporters start using the health of the economy in political arguments, I struggle to rationalise the lack of consistency. The sovereignty crusade you're embarking on is having a real, literal, impact on the economy as we speak, as the Government admit, as every economist admits, and as the raw stats of the economy admits.

 

Baffling. A rant but please utilise a bit of consistency. If the economy is that important to you, you wouldn't be supporting Brexit.

 

Did I mention the economy?....... I don't support brexit.

[Fosse69]

May Day 7th June

[Howjy04]

Resignation day June 7th.

[Howjy04]

**** off Boris.ABB.

[Santa]

As long as Farage's mouth is writing cheques for the Tory party that they can't cash, the new PM will have the exactly the same problems as May did.

[Bycarsbill]

Quite. Brexit means so many different things to so many different people.

 

Absolutely correct! Brexit is a poisoned chalice that would have tested anyone taking on the role of PM in 2016. If anything, it is now unfortunately an even bigger challenge and whoever takes over as PM will have exactly the same arithmetical problems in parliament. We have, since the referendum result was announced on 24th June 2016, always had the same conundrum; namely, a single issue referendum democracy versus a representational decomracy in which the overwhelming majority of MPs are remainers. Having an arch-Brexiteer as leader of the government is only likely to exacerbate that skewed political weighting and will lead IMO to more intolerance and division. What a bloody mess!

[Rampant Zebra]

[TheSage]

 

Great band from my past!

 

It's hard to see where we now go from here.

 

The issue at heart is as Bill alludes to above but it's not a party issue and never has been. Parties, families, friends are split down the middle and it's a real mess.

 

The Tories - thinking about their own skins and as ruthless about winning power as ever - think that if they replace the hapless May with a Brexiteer like Johnson then they'll hoover up Farage's votes and put a nail in his coffin for good.

However, just as many Tories, if not more, are not on the extreme right and don't want a No Deal Brexit.

So we are going round and round in circles.

 

Labour is just as split and Corbyn doesn't know whether to stick or twist because he's afraid of Farage in the north but around London Labour voters are remainers.

 

It's hard to see where it will end.

 

But I think the Tories are largely thinking about themselves and the fear that Farage will take votes off them unless they go more to the right.

 

Nothing persuades me from my belief that to win elections you have to win the centre ground and going right and left will not do that, nor heal the country.

[cheshirevaliant]