Oor Nicola Sturgeon thread.

[ICTJohnboy]

8 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

 

Was the one on the left in Prisoner Cell Block H?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Sure sure but across all the manifold little bits and pieces of things a government can do, even if it's in your opinion a doomed venture as it still falls under the umbrella of capitalism, there's some good that can come from making a choice. 
I know that doesn't sit well with the wee ideological purity angel whispering in your ear but she's not real.
 
ETA: he's got you skewered there [mention=22650]DeeTillEhDeh[/mention]

I may not agree with the SNP on some things but I'm honest enough and old enough to realise that no political party is going to do everything that an individual wants. Weighing things up I still support the SNP.

What I won't accept is a duplicitous shitehawk who continually snipes about the SNP no matter what their stance is. I may not have agreed with the Single Market or nothing stance but recognise that it was a position built on principles - more than can be said for the fence-sitters of the Labour Party that he supports.

[Detournement]

23 minutes ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

The wee one looks like David Guetta somehow. 

[doulikefish]

56 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I looked back on the Brexit thread and you wanted the SNP to back the Customs Union on the very day of this vote! You do not disapoint.

 

Minter 

[welshbairn]

40 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Whats it to you? He's said many times he doesn't vote so he's just getting a buzz off carping from the sidelines on a football forum. It's not like he's doing anything, why get annoyed?

It's his whole point, if we don't get annoyed he might as well not bother. It doesn't mean we have to like it. I suspect he's gone too long pretending to sympathise with Farage, Trump, Patel and most recently the Patriotic Alternative to not start believing in it himself. While at the same time pretending to be extremely  left wing of course.

Quote

Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was reprised by the punk movement in the late 1970s.

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by welshbairn

[DA Baracus]

I broke my ankle in 2005.

Clearly the SNP's fault and Sturgeon should resign over it.

[Ad Lib]

5 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Can't remember the timing but was this when Johnson was given the FO job that he fucked up spectacularly and May assumed would finish him off for good?

This would have been around about when she first formed her Cabinet aye.

In hindsight I underestimated both how earnest May was in her efforts to honour the referendum result and I also underestimated the influence and ideological determination of the backbenches of the Tory party.

[Ad Lib]

For what it’s worth Detournment is right when he says the April 2019 Indicative Votes exercise was when a soft Brexit died.

And the MPs who share the blame for that are those who were against Brexit but unwilling to help the May Government seek a closer relationship than the one she had negotiated.

There’s a good chance May’s government would have failed to hold together if it had been dependent on opposition party backing for her or a soft Brexit. But that would have brought forward a General Election and deprived Boris the chance to reunite the Tory party behind a hard Brexit vision. Simply put the outcome couldn’t have been any worse than what we ended up with from the perspective of a Remainer.

Frankly even if Parliament had voted to pass the Withdrawal Agreement in October last year instead of to pause it we’d be in a much better place right now. The 2019 GE basically wiped Parliament off the map in terms of influencing the Brexit process and outcomes.

[John Lambies Doos]

For what it’s worth Detournment is right when he says the April 2019 Indicative Votes exercise was when a soft Brexit died.
And the MPs who share the blame for that are those who were against Brexit but unwilling to help the May Government seek a closer relationship than the one she had negotiated.
There’s a good chance May’s government would have failed to hold together if it had been dependent on opposition party backing for her or a soft Brexit. But that would have brought forward a General Election and deprived Boris the chance to reunite the Tory party behind a hard Brexit vision. Simply put the outcome couldn’t have been any worse than what we ended up with from the perspective of a Remainer.
Frankly even if Parliament had voted to pass the Withdrawal Agreement in October last year instead of to pause it we’d be in a much better place right now. The 2019 GE basically wiped Parliament off the map in terms of influencing the Brexit process and outcomes.

The main reason May's proposal (legal text) failed was the border in Irish sea, this was scuppered by the DUP and hard ERG. Any possible border on the island of Ireland was never going to be accepted by the EU/Eire. In hindsight, this is exactly what we got as BJ didn't need DUP with his stonking majority.
The formal deal negotiation only started once that protocol was settled, therefore if the SNP/Labour had voted with May, it's not completely unfeasible that we would have had a similar deal (albeit less delay)
Therefore, anyone who says the SNP was complicit and caused a bad deal is for the birds.
Desperation from usual posters and pish stained foulkes

[AMMjag]

The SNP is correct to oppose Brexit in any form. Where I disagreed most with them was backing a GE for the purpose of a few extra MPs, at the cost of holding any sway in Parliament and being able to shoot Boris Johnson repeatedly at the bottom of his barrell. 

Imagine the Tory's constitutional crisis of just over 12 months ago followed on for just a couple more months, and then met the global pandemic in late February. Absolute carnage, which is what I'd want to see a Scottish Nationalist movement encouraging at Westminster at any given opportunity.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

For what it’s worth Detournment is right when he says the April 2019 Indicative Votes exercise was when a soft Brexit died.
And the MPs who share the blame for that are those who were against Brexit but unwilling to help the May Government seek a closer relationship than the one she had negotiated.
There’s a good chance May’s government would have failed to hold together if it had been dependent on opposition party backing for her or a soft Brexit. But that would have brought forward a General Election and deprived Boris the chance to reunite the Tory party behind a hard Brexit vision. Simply put the outcome couldn’t have been any worse than what we ended up with from the perspective of a Remainer.
Frankly even if Parliament had voted to pass the Withdrawal Agreement in October last year instead of to pause it we’d be in a much better place right now. The 2019 GE basically wiped Parliament off the map in terms of influencing the Brexit process and outcomes.

That is wishful thinking.

Indicative votes is all they were.

They were not binding and, given May's previous, she would have completely ignored the result if one of them had gained a majority.

This was never about getting a Parliamentary majority but keeping the fractious coalition of Tories together. If there had been concessions it would have been to the ERG/DUP not the Remainers.

[NotThePars]

45 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

That is wishful thinking.

Indicative votes is all they were.

They were not binding and, given May's previous, she would have completely ignored the result if one of them had gained a majority.

This was never about getting a Parliamentary majority but keeping the fractious coalition of Tories together. If there had been concessions it would have been to the ERG/DUP not the Remainders.

That might be true but if the Remain coalition had actually settled on a compromise they would have been in a far stronger position to manoeuvre out of the parliamentary deadlock and land the blame at the Tory government instead of gifting Johnson, Cummings and their mates the easiest narrative to sell to the public in a generation. "Parliamentary fails to agree on anything" literally wrote itself and let Johnson scoosh the election six months later.

Edited December 29, 2020 by NotThePars

[DeeTillEhDeh]

That might be true but if the Remain coalition had actually settled on a compromise they would have been in a far stronger position to manoeuvre out of the parliamentary deadlock and land the blame at the Tory government instead of gifting Johnson, Cummings and their mates the easiest narrative to sell to the public in a generation. "Parliamentary fails to agree on anything" literally wrote itself and let Johnson scoosh the election six months later.

Whilst the Labour Party sat on the fence and obsessed over a General Election there was zero chance.

The ironic thing is that those in Parliament who were the biggest obstacle to the deal were not the Remainers but Johnson and the ERG. The portrayal by the media of Johnson standing up to Parliament is the biggest con pulled off in the history of UK politics.

In any case a Soft Brexit deal was never on the cards after May ruled it out at the very beginning of the process.

This whole thing has been the tail waving the donkey in the interests of preserving unity in both the Tory and Labour Parties.

[sparky88]

3 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

That is wishful thinking.

Indicative votes is all they were.

They were not binding and, given May's previous, she would have completely ignored the result if one of them had gained a majority.

This was never about getting a Parliamentary majority but keeping the fractious coalition of Tories together. If there had been concessions it would have been to the ERG/DUP not the Remainers.

There's absolutely no chance a version of Brexit that didn't involve ending freedom of movement would have been remotely acceptable. So hard Brexit or no Brexit were the only two outcomes.

[Detournement]

Given that May had announced she would step down two days before the indicative votes it's pretty obvious that she hoped to use them to get a deal through and was willing to frame it as a parliamentary deal rather than a Tory deal and take the inevitable heat from the ERG as a lame duck PM.

Resigning also created a double edged sword which was "deal with me now or Boris later". 

Why the SNP decided not to support it at the last minute when everyone was expecting them to get behind it would be interesting to know. Was it just a strategic blunder or were they led up the garden path by Mandelson/Campbell/Rudd and their funders? Either way the UK being in a customs union would be beneficial to Scotland AND Indy Scotland. 

 

[Gordon EF]

21 hours ago, Detournement said:

There were enough votes for a Customs Union if the SNP backed it. A hard Brexit was assured on the day this happened.

 

 

Or, you know... any other party at all.

It's alternate history territory but I'd be extremely sceptical that we'd be heading towards a customs union right now if a handful more MPs had voted for it back then. Didn't the UK gvt already ask for a CU without FoM and the EU told us to bolt? What would the indicative vote have done to alter that?

Edited December 29, 2020 by Gordon EF

[welshbairn]

3 hours ago, NotThePars said:

That might be true but if the Remain coalition had actually settled on a compromise they would have been in a far stronger position to manoeuvre out of the parliamentary deadlock and land the blame at the Tory government instead of gifting Johnson, Cummings and their mates the easiest narrative to sell to the public in a generation. "Parliamentary fails to agree on anything" literally wrote itself and let Johnson scoosh the election six months later.

The only thing that could have worked was not only agreeing a compromise but winning a vote of no confidence in the Government and agreeing on a new leader to carry it out. The Tory rebels and the Lib Dems would never have accepted Corbyn and Labour wouldn't have accepted anyone else, so I don't think any deal that happened at that time would have been any better or less awful than the one we've got.

Edited December 29, 2020 by welshbairn

[Gordon EF]

We won't know whether the SNP could really ever have engineered a softer Brexit or whether that would help or hinder independence. But, to be honest, I don't think there's much doubt the SNP have taken a fairly "Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake" approach to Brexit.

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The only thing that could have worked was not only agreeing a compromise but winning a vote of no confidence in the Government and agreeing on a new leader to carry it out. The Tory rebels and the Lib Dems would never have accepted Corbyn and Labour wouldn't have accepted anyone else, so I don't think any deal that happened at that time would have been any better or less awful than the one we've got.

May announced she would quit after the negotiations because she fully intended to go against her party. The timing wasn't a coincidence. 

She had immunity as Tory leader until January 2020 so there was potential for an effective national unity government with her as PM. 

[NotThePars]

2 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The only thing that could have worked was not only agreeing a compromise but winning a vote of no confidence in the Government and agreeing on a new leader to carry it out. The Tory rebels and the Lib Dems would never have accepted Corbyn and Labour wouldn't have accepted anyone else, so I don't think any deal that happened at that time would have been any better or less awful than the one we've got.

The EU always sounded pretty receptive to Corbyn and there were noises about pretty good talks between the two. If you're saying that the Tory rebels, Lib Dems and those within the Labour Party that sabotaged it between 2015-2019 are responsible for Brexit then yeah, I agree.

 

1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:

We won't know whether the SNP could really ever have engineered a softer Brexit or whether that would help or hinder independence. But, to be honest, I don't think there's much doubt the SNP have taken a fairly "Never interfere with your enemy when he is making a mistake" approach to Brexit.

The SNP are the only ones where I feel they can adequately point to their stated objectives as meeting their actual objectives. As I alluded to above, the People's Vote lot clearly didn't care that much about stopping Brexit or if they were they were fucking hopeless at it.

Someone on Twitter, might've been Flying Rodent, pointed out that if they'd taken the softer Brexit approach where we basically stayed in but were out then there would've been enough alignment and possible goodwill to basically end up back in in a few years. Hard to see that happening now because too many bad and/ or stupid actors wrecked it for everyone.