Thought I'd start a new thread as this is going to be a major talking point this year...have not made up my mind yet...(unlike bucksfizz)....but thinking of voting for an exit as Europe is not doing Britain any good at all it seems....

JIT is nothing like they portray on the news anyway.

Amber Rudd ... geez getting desperate , needs friends.

My gut feel is TM will get this deal to parliament. How it goes from there hmmm

Dil,

Have a look at the projected turnovers and profits of companies in the Ftse 350.

Seems to me that they don't have the same confidence about Brexit as you do.

Also, look at the number of large companies "bolstering" their share price by buybacks rather than employing the "Cash" for R and D.

Seems the lack confidence in the glorious future you advocate.

I think we should merely give 'No Deal' a re-name and then we could all be much more enthusiastic about it

How about SUICIDE.

The term, "No Deal" has disaster written all over it. Blatantly, it even conjures up the feelings of "Suicide" for Fred.

I'm thinking maybe we go out with a "Complete Break".

This name conjures up the potential for a new start with new opportunities and with a complete break from all the negatives of the EU - which negatives are why lots of us wanted to leave the EU in the first place.

We could all of us start getting really enthusiastic about a "Complete Break", don't you think?

A bit like ploughing up an Orchard or Vineyard at the end of December as the trees have no fruit or berries on them and attempting to replace with a profitable cropping business with weeds and hoping to find a profitable stock which can graze on it for free.


Based on short-term hopes dreamt about in comics.

Mind there will be some barrow boys making a "kill" out of flogging the "dreams" before they move on to other pastures.

Has Farage moved to Donald Trump land yet?

cynic , why is no deal bad for business exactly ?

Brilliant, quite brilliant!



https://www.captiongenerator.com/1176382/Jacob-Rees-Mogg-saves-Brexit

Reading today's hard copy Sunday Telegraph, I greatly feel the PM has definitely been cheating us by way of manipulation - and her MPs and Cabinet too.

She might survive the 'no confidence crisis' thingy.

I do hope those who are in position to do so, can lever things, and particularly concerning the NI Backstop, back to a situation, that is definitely acceptable to more hard Brexiteers and thereby more in line with the Referendum vote.

More appropriate!

November 18, 2018
The proposed Withdrawal Agreement breaches international human rights conventions
Written by
Martin Parsons

Dr Martin Parsons is an author and has recently completed a book on Conservatism and UK national identity and values.

On Friday Michel Barnier told a meeting of EU27 ambassadors the EU has a “duty” to stand firm on its key Brexit red lines and not compromise on the draft Withdrawal Agreement.

However, what seems to have escaped M. Barnier’s attention – and that is the most generous way of putting it – is that some of those red lines are serious breaches of international human rights conventions and could even lead to an investigation by the UN Human Rights Committee.

The most important area where the draft text breaches human rights conventions to which all EU member states have signed up is the requirement that the UK cannot leave the customs backstop without the permission of the EU. There is is a further potential breach over the division of the UK created by the EU insistence that Northern Ireland be subjected to additional EU regulations over which they will have no say.

Specifically, the draft Withdrawal Agreement breaches the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

The important thing about the ICCPR is that unlike many other human rights conventions, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the ICCPR has legal teeth because countries ratifying are required to give it legal status in their country.

That means that any breach of it can be subject to judicial review. The very first article of the ICCPR states:

Article 1
All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

Please note that first section: All peoples have the right of self determination.

By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic… development.

Requiring the UK to sign a treaty taking away that right to determine our own political and economic development i.e. leave the backstop, without the EU’s permission, is a clear violation of Article 1 of the ICCPR.

Now, the EU actually makes great play of the importance of the ICCPR; in fact, it is a major tool of EU foreign policy. Through the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preference (GSP), it grants a number of developing countries zero tariff or low tariff access to the EU Single Market – providing that they actively comply with a number of international human rights conventions, among which the ICCPR is prominent.

Compliance requires not simply saying the right thing, but also doing the right thing.

For example, in February this year there was serious concern amongst business leaders in Pakistan that they could lose GSP status precisely because of Pakistan’s non-compliance with aspects of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is therefore an extraordinary and shameless act of double hypocrisy for the EU to breach the ICCPR in such a blatant way.

There are actually other international human rights conventions which the EU has potentially breached in the draft Withdrawal Agreement as well. For example, Article 73 of the UN Charter which relates to countries which do not have ‘a full measure of self-government’ i.e. where a foreign power exercises a measure of political or economic control, requires that foreign power to recognise ‘the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount’, while the UN convention relating to such territories specifically states that:

Any attempt aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and the territorial integrity of a country is incompatible with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

However, returning to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), it is clear that the draft Withdrawal Agreement is a very blatant breach of the ICCPR, which is legally enforceable in any country which has ratified it – as all EU members states have.

It is therefore possible for anyone to apply for judicial review of the Withdrawal Agreement.

However, even if a request for judicial review were refused – because all 28 EU member states have ratified not just the ICCPR itself, but also the First Optional Protocol, a referral can be made directly to the UN Human Rights Committee by any individuals who claim that any of their rights enumerated in the Covenant have been violated and who have exhausted all available domestic remedies may submit a written communication to the Committee for consideration.

As all EU member states are required to collectively agree the Withdrawal Agreement, they become liable when they do so. I wonder how the people of Belgium or Germany – or for that matter Ireland – will feel about being investigated by the UN Human Rights Committee because of a serious breach of an international human rights convention by the European Union as it sought to retain control over an independent sovereign nation after it left the EU?

Hmmm? Ha Ha Bloody! Or, as they say in Wales, "Ha Bloody Ha! Gotcha!"

Desperate days indeed when we have to go to the UN to say that we are being bullied by the EU. The UK leaving is equivalent, in economic terms, to 19 of the other smaller economies leaving. While I have no real problem with staying in a common market, we have to be free of Brussels' political apparatchiks and the likes of little boy Macron who is fiddling in Germany while France burns.

The EU will turn us into captives if we sign up to this appalling sell-out of a deal

By

Boris Johnson



18 November 2018 • 9:45pm



Well, it seems my predictions of last week were, if anything, too optimistic. If MPs vote for this deal, we are bowing our neck to the yoke.

We are preparing to take colonial rule by foreign powers and courts. We are handing over colossal sums of money for nothing. We are giving up the hope of new free-trade deals. We are giving up the right to vary our laws. We are betraying Leavers and Remainers alike: we are poised to abandon any UK influence in Brussels, and yet we are signally failing to take back control.

In fact, we are surrendering control to the EU – and this 585-page fig-leaf does nothing to cover the embarrassment of our total defeat.


more: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/18/eu-will-turn-us-captives-sign-appalling-sell-out-deal/

Oooooh, are the gammon revolting?

:o)

from today's FT .......

In praise of Theresa May, a serious leader in an age of pygmies
It is increasingly hard not to admire Theresa May. The prime minister is serving at a torrid moment in British history, dealing with the unenviable task of negotiating exiting the EU while holding her belligerent Conservative party together. These challenges would stretch a leader of the highest calibre.
Yet Mrs May — who is often decried as weak and a sellout — just keeps going. She may still end up facing a leadership challenge, yet outside of the political bubble there is a growing sense that she is the only grown-up who can guide the country through this traumatic time.

Those of you that do not know what it is like to live under German rule should visit the Channel Islands War Museum - Churchill having sacraficied the Islands for the Greater Good - or was it?

If you want to be ruled by Europe then why leave - if you want to live under the boot and become submissive just put your hands up and surrender.

Out means out and that is what the majority voted for - like it or not - they knew full well what they were voting for, unlike the toffs that think they know it all.