The Student Room Group

WHO is to blame for no Brexit and HOW did they do it?

PM May & her team worked "behind closed doors" and delivered a "sham" Brexit deal, putting MPs in an awful position.
She then castigated and blamed them for not voting for it.

Mark Francois was on LBC this morning saying it was a Treasury stitch up, sadly I cannot find the explanation.

Does anyone have a clear understanding?

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It lies with May. Her incompetence in the 2017 General Election meant she has a minority government, competence would have seen a very high double digit or triple digit majority that would have been enough to pass her WA, she might even have been able to get a slightly less bad one too. After that it was her refusal to countenance no deal as an option, it weakened her negotiating position (the EU knew she didn't actually mean "no deal is better than a bad deal") leading to terms that the ERG could not accept, it also meant that the vote today was not the last chance for remainers to avoid no deal, had the 2 week extension not been agreed to the WA would have comfortably passed today due to mass Labour abstentions, they wouldn't vote for it but given a vote against is a vote for no deal they wouldn't have voted against it either.
Reply 2
Clear understanding, no (not sure anyone does). But I'll give an opinion, from the point of view of someone who isn't a Leaver or Remainer. For the current mess itself, I'd say the blame mostly lies in three places.

1) Cameron & Friends. Used the promise of a referendum they didn't want as a bribe to win an election. Then, delivered a useless fudge of a 'renegotiation' that addressed and changed nothing, largely because they went into said discussions having already said they wanted to stay regardless. Then called and ran the referendum with the naive view that because they didn't expect Leave to win, they could just ignore the possibility and do nothing in preparation, setting the scene for a rushed mess.

2) Persistent Remain Camp. Essentially, the Man Utd fans being told to cheer for Liverpool. Not the general public, but the people in highly influential positions (government, civil service, media) who haven't stopped working to either stop or heavily soften Brexit since the vote happened. Massively undermined any position Britain took and significantly weakened any hand the negotiating team had.

3) May & Friends. Triggered Article 50 too quickly. Then put together the 'negotiating team' (some of whom are members of 2) above) who, as far as I'm able to tell, have achieved the impossible in that they have Leavers and Remainers agreeing with each other on something Brexit-related... sadly, the thing they're in agreement about is that the deal is crap.

Limited it to three because my Brexit-fatigue is currently close to an all-time high.
Primarily the Germans and also the French, they slowly made it more centralised that it became our duty once again to save Europe from dominance from Germany/France or some disgusting superstate
Reply 4
No that's a reason why people wanted to leave not the reason we failed to leave.
2 things combined to create the backstop problem:
1) May (naively or more likely through deliberate bad advice) fell at the first hurdle of the negotiations with the EU by agreeing with their request to settle a withdrawal agreement before looking at trading arrangements.
This is actually completely contrary to article 50 which says that the withdrawal agreement must take into account the future trading relationship.

2) the Treasury asked for a backstop because they want high alignment through a custom Union.

I got the above understanding from Lord Michael Howard QC talking with Mark Francois on this morning's Nick Ferrari show which can be listened to or downloaded from the LBC app here is a snippet:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/mark-francois-wont-back-brexit-deal-surrender/
Original post by AperfectBalance
Primarily the Germans and also the French, they slowly made it more centralised that it became our duty once again to save Europe from dominance from Germany/France or some disgusting superstate
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by NJA
No that's a reason why people wanted to leave not the reason we failed to leave.
2 things combined to create the backstop problem:
1) May (naively or more likely through deliberate bad advice) fell at the first hurdle of the negotiations with the EU by agreeing with their request to settle a withdrawal agreement before looking at trading arrangements.
This is actually completely contrary to article 50 which says that the withdrawal agreement must take into account the future trading relationship.

2) the Treasury asked for a backstop because they want high alignment through a custom Union.

I got the above understanding from Lord Michael Howard QC talking with Mark Francois on this morning's Nick Ferrari show which can be listened to or downloaded from the LBC app here is a snippet:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/nick-ferrari/mark-francois-wont-back-brexit-deal-surrender/


Totally misread that, but the fact stands that the EU never wanted us to leave peacefully and with minimum damage to both parties, they want everything for themselves and to put us in chaos for as long as possible, because if we exit and things become better quickly it might encourage more people to do the same, wheras if we lose heavily it will encouraged the enslaved countries to stay within the EU even more.
Original post by NJA
PM May & her team worked "behind closed doors" and delivered a "sham" Brexit deal, putting MPs in an awful position.
She then castigated and blamed them for not voting for it.

Mark Francois was on LBC this morning saying it was a Treasury stitch up, sadly I cannot find the explanation.

Does anyone have a clear understanding?


May is to blame simply for the order of talks she agreed to, she should never have done the withdrawal agreement until stage three as advised by David Davis.

Everything since then has been a cluster ****, compounded by the 2017 election with the infamous dementia tax which lost her so many votes.

Then we move on to the post election phase it’s just been the opposition parties moaning about a single market and a customs union even though that is the point of leaving the EU hence why they are red lines!

And we end up with yesterdays vote where labour said even though we agree with everything in the withdrawal agreement we aren’t voting for it simply because it doesn’t include a customs union which you can’t add until the next phase anyway.

Any actual brexit voter shouldn’t vote labour at the next GE on that alone.
This was really the only ever possible outcome. David Cameron called a referendum without putting any legislation down on the table for anybody to actually vote on, so the 2016 referendum was so far open to re-interpretation and mis-interpretation that it's actually meaningless. The 2016 referendum result didn't deliver a majority for any of the possible leave outcomes.

That is exactly what David Cameron intended of course; his campaign strategy was "nobody knows what happens if you vote leave.."; which was 100% true because he'd set up the vote in such a way that leave didn't mean anything - all he cared about was silencing the ERG.

But beyond that, it's also worth remembering that the entire leave campaign during 2016 was based around the premise that the UK would cease to be a member of the EU and remain in the customs union and single market.

People with short memories might prefer to forget the fact that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove and many others campaigned vehemently before the referendum to stay inside the Customs Union and the Single Market. Realistically speaking, if those people had really wanted the UK to leave those institutions, then they shouldn't have campaigned for the opposite. There was no way that Parliament was ever going to let those people campaign for one thing and then end up delivering the opposite of what they campaigned for.
(edited 4 years ago)
Original post by winterscoming
This was really the only ever possible outcome. David Cameron called a referendum without putting any legislation down on the table for anybody to actually vote on, so the 2016 referendum was so far open to re-interpretation and mis-interpretation that it's actually meaningless. The 2016 referendum result didn't deliver a majority for any of the possible leave outcomes.

That is exactly what David Cameron intended of course; his campaign strategy was "nobody knows what happens if you vote leave.."; which was 100% true because he'd set up the vote in such a way that leave didn't mean anything - all he cared about was silencing the ERG.

But beyond that, it's also worth remembering that the entire leave campaign during 2016 was based around the premise that the UK would cease to be a member of the EU and remain in the customs union and single market.

People with short memories might prefer to forget the fact that Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Michael Gove and many others campaigned vehemently before the referendum to stay inside the Customs Union and the Single Market. Realistically speaking, if those people had really wanted the UK to leave those institutions, then they shouldn't have campaigned for the opposite. There was no way that Parliament was ever going to let those people campaign for one thing and then end up delivering the opposite of what they campaigned for.


Oh really

https://youtu.be/9fDn0MvcHQ

https://youtu.be/R16-ZvH5_ho

Plus about another thousand compilations on YouTube
Original post by paul514
Oh really

https://youtu.be/9fDn0MvcHQ

https://youtu.be/R16-ZvH5_ho

Plus about another thousand compilations on YouTube

The first link says "video unavailable". The second one is from 2018.
Original post by NJA
PM May & her team worked "behind closed doors" and delivered a "sham" Brexit deal, putting MPs in an awful position.
She then castigated and blamed them for not voting for it.

Mark Francois was on LBC this morning saying it was a Treasury stitch up, sadly I cannot find the explanation.

Does anyone have a clear understanding?

Labour and the Speaker.

Today all but about 30 ERG members caved while Labour who have stated they have no objection to the withdrawal agreement itself voted against it.

I would add the speaker because by making government motions amendable he allowed them to take control of the order paper which now has the potential to override the wishes of the executive.

This is terribly disappointing.
I think the question is the problem. No one has yet actually explained what "Leaving the EU" actually means. Nor has any non-partisan body explain the consequences of the varying interpretations of the question. Whilst no one can decide what it means or what the consequences are practically, it is no surprise that consensus can not be reached.
Perhaps the entire country should agree that the World Health Organisation is responsible for this shambles on the basis that it is always easier to blame someone else
Reply 13
"Leave" is the reverse of whatever defines "remain" i.e. what needs to happen for a country to join the EU.
Simple!
Original post by ByEeek
I think the question is the problem. No one has yet actually explained what "Leaving the EU" actually means. Nor has any non-partisan body explain the consequences of the varying interpretations of the question. Whilst no one can decide what it means or what the consequences are practically, it is no surprise that consensus can not be reached.
Now lets not be too harsh on the World Health Organisation :sadnod:
Original post by NJA
"Leave" is the reverse of whatever defines "remain" i.e. what needs to happen for a country to join the EU.
Simple!

Well it doesn't for the reasons outlined in your OP.

Formalism would suggest any status that is not recognised as being a member of the EU is good enough to Leave but most Leavers would not accept that.

For example, Monaco is not a member of the EU. No Monegasque flag flies with the member states, but Monaco uses the Euro (indeed it has its own Euro coins) and is treated as part of France for most EU purposes. Would you regard Britain taking the same status as Monaco as being leaving the EU? Most people would not.

Before we joined the EU, we were members of EFTA. After we left EFTA, EFTA joined the EEA. Would rejoining EFTA and remaining in the EEA amount to leaving the EU? The present government would say not.
I think most of the blame lies with the Prime Minister. The 2017 General Election being the main thing, but also in appointing the lazy David Davis to lead the negotiations (of the Brexiteers Michael Gove would have done a better job), in appointing Boris Johnson to be Foreign Secretary (indeed any cabinet post), and in doing the deal with the DUP that was unnecessary. Then by not bringing the vote to the House within a few days of the Withdrawal Agreement, not being in a position to have time to discuss what is acceptable to the House, or having serious cross-party discussions.
The buck ultimately stops with Theresa May, since she lost the majority and the heafty poll lead which made parliamentary arithmetic a right arse. It would have been tricky to get through under the old numbers (2015-2017) as there probably would have been sufficient Conservative rebels + the Lib Dem’s and SNP who simply haven’t accepted the result + some labour MPs would vote in down just because it’s the Conservatives.
Reply 18
That only holds true if Labour MPs are not voting according to their electorate but are playing politics.
Original post by Andrew97
The buck ultimately stops with Theresa May, since she lost the majority and the heafty poll lead which made parliamentary arithmetic a right arse. It would have been tricky to get through under the old numbers (2015-2017) as there probably would have been sufficient Conservative rebels + the Lib Dem’s and SNP who simply haven’t accepted the result + some labour MPs would vote in down just because it’s the Conservatives.
Original post by NJA
That only holds true if Labour MPs are not voting according to their electorate but are playing politics.


Complaining that the Opposition are opposing is like complaining about gravity.

She was very lucky the Opposition didn't abstain on the extending Article 50 vote. That would have looked pretty gruesome with it only passing on the payroll vote of government ministers.

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