isaac_newton wrote:I have absolutely no idea as to how this will end, and to be honest, it fills me with despair.
It might end up up with HB [a form of GBH] - but with the absolute load of shysters, entitled gits and cretins in the government/brexit wing that is not going to end well.
I think the writing was on the wall after the first round of indicative votes. 400 and then 422 MPs voted against no deal and a "managed" no deal options, with approximately 80 abstentations(government payroll). Only 160 MPs voted in favour.
It takes 436 MPs to trigger an immediate snap election. That is the price of a long extension, as well as being required to participate in European elections, which will turn into a de facto referendum on Brexit, taking place before the UK general election does. The hardest Brexiteers don't have the 206 MPs they need to block this supermajority.
Nobody knows how that general election will turn out. The new parties are both capable of capturing Labour and Tory voters. Because we use FPTP, polling is on shaky ground predicting how those vote shifts will affect overall results.
But the European elections run under proportional representation. The last poll suggested "hard Brexit" parties would get a combined 42%, the "hard Remain" parties getting around 25% and... Labour getting 30%, making their Brexit policy in that election annoyingly pivotal.
Unless Macron or somebody else fed up with the UK government says "au revoir" and blocks any long extension, we'll be getting these terms and conditions next Wednesday. Parliament will grudingly accept them and then the electorate will be asked to go and vote twice in rapid succession.
