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....

as i've told you umpteen times, i'll live with whatever comes along
if it ultimately means that it's not worth being in business or worse, then i'll just sell up and retire

certainly if labour+corbyn+mcdonnell (ever) get in, then it won't be the retired who get clobbered the worst, but as usual, it will be the middle classes

and of course though you perpetually castigate those who voted out, you are no less culpable for not voting at all

"if labour+corbyn+mcdonnell (ever) get in,"

they will be looking out for you.

(They have a little list, you know!)

What's your address again?

8-)

PS.

How much longer do you think you have to go.

i am sure they will have a very large list to ensure they know all the middle classes who earn more than say £80k and/or live in a house that happens to be worth more than say £800k

I thought you would have disposed of you gotten gains by now.

far from it ... i still work in my own business

Tony Blair has refuted claims that a People’s Vote would be divisive for the people of the United Kingdom - instead arguing that the government continuing to push Theresa May’s doomed deal is worse.

The former Labour leader and prime minister was speaking at a People’s Vote event when he claimed that the chances of a fresh referendum now stood at more than 50%.

He said: “What seemed a few months ago unlikely is now I would say above a 50% likelihood. We will go back to the people.”

Blair said that European leaders must prepare for the “probability” that Britain will need to stay in the EU beyond March 2019 to allow for a second referendum.

He said: “Europe should prepare for the possibility now morphing into the near probability that Britain will require an extension of time to the Article 50 process, either to negotiate further or more likely to conduct a new referendum.

“We are now entering a new phase of Brexit. Government has lost the initiative. Parliament has taken it. We know the options for Brexit. Parliament will have to decide on one of them. If Parliament can’t then it should decide to go back to the people.

“Now should be the time of preparation - Parliament to make sure it can canvas the options in sensible manner, one by one, to reach agreement on an option or a referendum; Europe to ensure that if Britain is ready to think again, Europe is ready also to think again.

“All that is necessary is for leadership: in Parliament if not in government, and in Europe where despite all the myriad of challenges European leaders have, they should understand that changing Brexit would be the greatest boost to Europe’s economy and politics and that therefore, they need to focus on the part they can play and play it.”

The former Labour leader also claimed it is “bizarre” that EU leaders feel obliged to deliver Brexit despite not believing in it.

“Not one believes this course is better than Britain staying in Europe. All of them recognise that in years to come this decision will be regretted by future generations,” he said.

“Yet all feel a strange compulsion to carry on... Things do not need to be like this. We have free will. It is past time to exercise it. Brexit is not some form of natural disaster, Brexit is man-made.”

unfortunately, tony blair is trusted by no one and with good reason
perhaps he can smell another wheeze to fill his bank accounts

Spot on with your post 10865 cynic.

Trusting Tony Blair would be like giving your money to the late Ronnie Briggs to look after.

He still has aspirations to be President of Europe or The UK if and when.

I had no problem with TB as PM it was like having a Conservative PM hence why is he so hated by the raving socialists ( Cue Stan and Fred )

As someone on QT pointed out last night , the last vote was a people's vote not a bloody android vote.

Cynic , don't forget Abbott as Home Secetary ... gawd help us.

I'm with you on that M but was a good job Brown talked him out of joining the Euro.

More Blair talks up a re run of the referendum the more Corby will be against it.

Keep up the good work Tony.

Martini,

Were you referring to Nebula May, crawling around Europe?

Stop trying to bark and get back, where you belong, in your kennel with Dil.

-=-=-=-=-

The tory and neo-cons' smears are wearing thin and they are running scared of a general election.

They are frightened of another referendum on "exiting" or not from the EU. and hypocritically braying about their so-called democratic principles. but prepared to break any contract or treaty which doesn't suit.

Dishonourable, disgraceful and disreputable behaviour as is being pointed out to their icon in Brussels.

Gutter politics.

The present tory mob and fellow travellers have created the EU problems and incapable of remedying them or admit their responsibilities.

Blaming anybody else for their failures as diversions rather than admitting them and resigning.

Their leadership is not even believed by members of their own party.

The cons don't want to reject Nebula and frightened to get rid of her because when they look for possible replacements in their own party of double-crosses the fields appear barren.

What a tribe.

Why do you insist on calling people silly names it is as if you were still in the play ground at school? Or thinking about it maybe that is where your problems stem from, got called names at school did we and never got over it.

It would certainly account for some of your childish behaviour.

on a personal note, i have no problem being called manuel for there is some reason for it and is actually quite amusing

i used to call fred FOS-Fred but desisted a long time ago even though i considered it apt

Weak and not dry.

I think some "silly" names are probably apt for you as are your username or biograph of "sad old git"!

But I could have called you a condescending ass, which is possibly seems more descriptive of you.

-=-=-=-

Nebula does describe for me, and many others, T May, Brexit and many Brexiteers, quite succinctly.

-=--=

Now get back in your kennel.

In the US I guess they would call Fred a "pinko".

and in peckham, a plonker :-)

The Scottish Tories are preparing to back a second Brexit referendum

Such is the disunity that the Scottish party may even declare independence from the UK Conservatives.

If Ruth Davidson weren’t on maternity leave, it’s tempting to believe the former Territorial Army Signaller would by now have commandeered a tank and be rumbling down the M6 with the gun pointed firmly in the direction of the ERG. Davidson’s contempt for Boris Johnson and his cohorts is absolute and withering. Her no-nonsense, pragmatic Conservatism does not allow for the preening self-indulgence of the Tory far-right.

But Davidson is with baby Finn, and this has left something of a hole in the Brexit debate, at both a Scottish and UK level. The leader of Scotland’s Tories broke her silence this week when she took to Twitter to praise Theresa May’s “cojones of steel” and pledge her full support for the PM ahead of the confidence vote, but otherwise her voice has been conspicuously, if understandably, absent.

This doesn’t mean the Scottish Conservatives are dormant, or that Project Ruth is in abeyance. The party at Holyrood remains fully signed up to Davidson’s liberal, One Nation stance. And if there isn’t a tank on its way to London, there are certainly a few rhetorical exocets being fired. “When I look at what’s going on down south, I feel appalled and embarrassed,” one prominent MSP tells me. “I hate the English party. I’m horrified at the support for no deal being expressed by party members. I’ve stopped reading ConservativeHome.”

If this sounds like a temporary huff, the fault lines run deeper. Senior Scottish Tories believe the UK is on a trajectory to crash out of the EU without a deal, and that this could be fatal for the unity of the United Kingdom. I understand that they will back any measure that prevents no deal, and could publicly express support for a second referendum – if May’s deal can’t pass parliament – as early as next week. I’m told both Davidson and her stand-in Jackson Carlaw are signed up to this position. “No deal would be disastrous and jeopardise the union so we will reluctantly have to go back to the country and ask them,” says a source.

The Scottish Tories would potentially favour a two-question referendum, along the lines of 1) Do you want to leave the European Union or remain on existing terms?, and 2) If you want to leave should we do so on the basis of the deal that has been agreed or leave without a deal?

There is tremendous anger that the party at Holyrood has been placed in this position, for a number of reasons. One is that support for a second EU referendum will make it much harder to argue against a second independence referendum in a few years’ time. “We would have to accept if there is a pro-indy majority after the 2021 [Holyrood] election there will be a second referendum,” says a source. On the upside, this would allow Davidson to frame the campaign as a binary choice between more constitutional disruption from the SNP or allowing the new UK settlement to bed down with the Conservatives.

The travails of Brexit have fractured the previous unity of the Scottish party. The group of MPs at Westminster were once seen as being loyal to Davidson, and to owe their seats to her popularity, but some have split away either to speak out against May’s deal or to support the more extreme end of the ERG position. “Project Ruth feels very much like a Holyrood project now,” says an MSP.

This may well have disruptive long-term consequences. Scottish sources say that if the UK party elects an English nationalist leader – ie someone from within the ERG group – it would strain the bonds to breaking point. It would also undermine the 2021 campaign – “if the Westminster Tories are as divisive and newsworthy at that point then it doesn’t matter what we do, we’re fucked,” according to a key member of Team Davidson.

This, in turn, could lead to a formal breach, with the Scottish party choosing to break the link with the UK party and become independent. “An increasing number of people at the top table think we need our independence,” says a senior MSP. The belief is that while Davidson would be unlikely to drive the split, she will leave the party in such a position that her successor will do so.

It remains unclear whether Brexit will destroy the integrity of the UK. But it will be a tremendous irony if one of the first institutions to fall apart under its strain is the Conservative Party itself.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2018/12/scottish-tories-are-preparing-back-second-brexit-referendum