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....

How many more times do the outsiders need telling, they really are hard work.

Cyners,

My tartiflette risked burning earlier, so it was easier to be flippant. Soz, but it was fun.

My best guess, however is this.... The original referendum question was 'Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?'. Whilst there was an implication, there wasn't actually any form of instruction or obligation within the question for the Government to act upon the result, which is why Gina Miller found it necessary to take the Government to court (for clarity) which ordered that Parliament give consent first before invoking Article 50.

The original referendum was therefore, at best, nothing more than 'advisory'.

Given that Parliament weren't obliged, but nonetheless, opted to enact the referendum result suggests to me that they have every right to withdraw Article 50 without further obligation to refer to the people.

Donc, the orginal referendum wouldn't be void per se, but it would still be meaningless.

Fred,

A little patience will deal with the remnants of them.

I would've thought that many of them are dead already. It's all that red meat, doncha know.

:o)

Hils it was Andrew Marr who said to TM that only the government could extend article 50 and she agreed. That's him and all his researchers talking crap too then.

Noise levels on here are going up and up but if you listen carefully you can still hear it ...














tic toc , tic toc , tic toc ...

Channel 4 9pm Brexit : The Uncivil War

Dilbert,

I'm not sure if you're missing the point, or if you're running scared that Brexit was never anything more than a pipe dream.

Regardless, and for the sake of clarity, yes it's only the Government who can revoke Article 50. Under the Grieve amendment, however, in the event that the Government is defeated in their attempt to pass the Withdrawal Act (sorry, Agreement as pointed out by Hawkeye below!) next week, the Government then have 21 days to offer up n alternative Plan B. In the event that an attempt to pass Plan B is also defeated, then it is within the power of Parliament to instruct the Government upon what to do next.

Obviously, anything Parliament suggests would also need to be voted upon, and there are a whole load of other ifs and buts. But, essentially, Andrew Marr and/or Theresa May are right insofar as it's only the Government who can revoke Article 50, but she conveniently neglected to say that she may have to take instructions from a higher power (and no, that's not Moggy or BoJo!).

And as another point of order, there is no automatic right to extend Article 50. To do so would require the approval of the other EU 27.

Good to see you admit you were wrong and Mrs May was right :-)

EU have said they will not extend Article 50 just to give the UK more time to sort things out and that there has to be some new proposal to delay it.

Like it or not there is no majority for anything in Parliament regarding Brexit.

I'd prefer a managed clean break with May resigning and someone on the leave side taking over and negotiating ad hoc deals once we are out.

What I currently think will happen is as time runs out that Corby not wanting to be blamed for a no deal Brexit makes a long winded speech on how he could have done it better and then gets Labour to abstain on May's deal and it finally gets voted through sometime in March.

Hilary, is that the same EU Withdrawal Act that passed both houses in 2018 and received Royal Assent in June 2018 and is now an Act of Parliament?

The story continues to evolve. I enjoyed that.
What will we do if the dust ever settles?

Try and put the pieces back as soon as, then get this useless good for nothing Government out and start to take a real interest in Europe (if that's possible) and stop wingeing on the sides all the time...that would be a good start.

Travel with hope, not dis'may.

hilary - you'll get very porky very quickly if you eat too much of that and then feel embarrassed to display all on the beach in cap d'agde :-)

Iturama,

Yes it is. Sorry, I meant to say Withdrawal Agreement, not Act.

Are you going to coat me in tar and feathers and force me to watch Cardiff try to play football?

they always said you were a lovely bird :-)

Interesting to note that the children’s hospital chosen by Theresa May to launch the government’s new NHS plan yesterday was built using financing from the European Investment Bank - which will be cut-off after Brexit.

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is one of 18 British hospitals over the past 10 years to receive financing from the EIB, with £56 million going towards its reconstruction in 2013.

The use of the hospital as the backdrop to the government’s NHS plan appears to be at odds with their attempts to paint a rosy picture of a thriving health service after Brexit.

According to the People’s Vote campaign 18 hospitals across the UK have been built using financing from the EIB, with loans totalling £2.9 billion since the first hospital was financed in 2003, and over the past ten years, the UK health sector has received more than £1 billion in EIB loans, to build hospitals, drive innovation and help SMEs develop cures.

The campaigners have warned that Britain’s access to this money will be cut off after Brexit, with the exchequer secretary to the treasury confirming recently that Britain will no longer be a member of the EIB after Brexit, and that there is no clarity over the precise way this access to finance for UK projects will be replicated.

So the EIB lent us our own money , that's damn decent of them.

Not exactly, Dilbert. The EIB has provided considerably more funding for UK infrastructure projects than the value of the UK's shareholding in the EIB.

Fractional banking - its how banks got so rich unless of course you pick too many bad ones like Greece or sub prime.

Many years ago I used to walk past Alder Hey Hospital on my way to and from school. That was well before the EIB existed. I'm sure it really was not built by the EIB. Honest. I saw the bricks.
Financing for various reasons is what banks do, including the EIB. Interestingly, it has been criticized recently by its major EU lender countries (the usual few) for poor governance and cost controls. Who would have believed an EU institution would have control problems? Mon dieu. As for the UK being cut off from its funding, I wonder how Russia managed to get it to fund its M10 motorway, or Ghana, its Bujagali Hydroelectric project? China recently received a Eur300M loan for "climate control". More remainiac alarmist propaganda.