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In the Year 3535 Theresa May FINALLY Delivered Brexit – But Nobody Cared!
UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s amended Withdrawal Agreement + the non binding Political Declaration + the Joint Instrument may be for all we know, the best possible arrangement for the United Kingdom to Leave the European Union; But if it takes until the year-3535 before it gets approved and signed into law, by definition, it’s not the best deal is it?
You might laugh at the year-3535 connotation. But really folks, the ‘talking shop’ that is the UK House of Commons (at least under Theresa May’s premiership) is on track to deliver Brexit months or even years after it has been repeatedly promised by the Prime Minister — which means the Brexit that Theresa May is on course to deliver might as well happen in the year-3535.
All of which means that Theresa May’s version of Brexit is irrelevant.
If you can’t get it done on-time and on-budget (£39 billion) Theresa May, it renders your vision of Brexit 100% insufficient and irrelevant.
I will remind you yet again, Prime Minister, The People voted to Brexit; They didn’t vote for a Withdrawal Agreement/Political Declaration/Joint Instrument/plus delays — they voted for the UK to Leave the EU in a reasonable amount of time.
And either the year-3535 or any date beyond June 23, 2018 (yes, 2018) is just not acceptable.
Even the newest backbench MP should recognize that once a referendum is held, and once the result becomes clear, and once the government promises to honour the result of that referendum — that promise to The People must be kept — and it’s not unreasonable to expect that it should be kept within 2-years of the date of the referendum.
This business of Brexit-extension-after-Brexit-extension (which is what I fully expect will happen over the coming months and years) is sub par, gauche, Low Ambition politics and it represents the very worst of parliamentary democracy on planet Earth — a talking shop that can’t get anything done, and keeps kicking the can down the road hoping it will all go away — and then blames its own MP’s for the failure.
Theresa May: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way!
There comes a point in every Prime Minister’s political life when they become a detriment to their party and to the country. It’s unseemly to hang on to power one minute beyond the moment that occurs, and that time is coming perilously close for Theresa May.
Theresa May has had almost three leisurely years to deliver Brexit — that’s 985-days if you’re counting the days — and her Number One platform item and promise to The People remains unfulfilled.
(It’s been 1005-days since the referendum to Leave the EU)
I’ll remind you at this point that it took only 2044-days for the UK and its allies to defeat Nazi Germany in the biggest war this world has ever known (September 3, 1939 – April 8, 1945) and if Theresa May and her government can’t even deliver a Brexit working with a European ally in less than 1000-days, that government’s failure will stand as one of the epic failures in political history.
Every MP should hang their heads in shame, resign their seat forthwith, and refer to themselves as ‘The Snowflake Generation’ forevermore unless they can now and suddenly act on the will of The People and arrange a Brexit (any kind of Brexit!) including a so-called and very unfairly portrayed No Deal Brexit, and get it handled within days — and be on with the other important (and piling-up) business of running the country.
The shame should be palpable; Millions died in World Wars fighting in brutal conditions for freedom and democracy, and with it, good government — and they didn’t fight for those noble ideals so that MP’s and in particular the Prime Minister could run away from their responsibilities, from their oft-stated promises, and from their party platform — because they’re too afraid to govern, or for some other reason of which we know not.
It’s time for the Theresa May government to stop running away from actually having to make a decision and to give The People what they voted for in the June 2016 referendum and if they can’t do that, then they need to resign, for they are not the quality of people the country needs in the UK House of Commons.
The good and long-suffering British people deserve better than this path of least resistance government.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May Asks EU Leaders for Brexit Delay: March 20, 2019
March 20, 2019: UK Prime Minister Theresa May writes to EC President Donald Tusk to request an audience with EC and EU leaders to discuss her application for an Article 50 extension, as the UK is unable to gather enough votes to pass the Withdrawal Agreement + Political Declaration in the UK House of Commons prior to the official Brexit date of March 29, 2019.
Transcript provided by the BBC
Dear Donald
The UK Government’s policy remains to leave the European Union in an orderly manner on the basis of the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed in November, complemented by the Joint Instrument and supplement to the Political Declaration President Juncker and I agreed on 11 March.
You will be aware that before the House of Commons rejected the deal for a second time on 12 March, I warned in a speech in Grimsby that the consequences of failing to endorse the deal were unpredictable and potentially deeply unpalatable. The House of Commons did not vote in favour of the deal. The following day it voted against leaving the EU without a negotiated deal. The day after that it supported a Government motion that proposed a short extension to the Article 50 period if the House supported a meaningful vote before this week’s European Council. The motion also made clear that if this had not happened, a longer extension would oblige the UK to call elections to the European Parliament. I do not believe that it would be in either of our interests for the UK to hold European Parliament elections.
I had intended to bring the vote back to the House of Commons this week. The Speaker of the House of Commons said on Monday that in order for a further meaningful vote to be brought back to the House of Commons, the agreement would have to be “fundamentally different-not different in terms of wording, but different in terms of substance”. Some Members of Parliament have interpreted that this means a further change to the deal. This position has made it impossible in practice to call a further vote in advance of the European Council. However, it remains my intention to bring the deal back to the House.
In advance of that vote, I would be grateful if the European Council could therefore approve the supplementary documents that President Juncker and I agreed in Strasbourg, putting the Government in a position to bring these agreements to the House and confirming the changes to the Government’s proposition to Parliament. I also intend to bring forward further domestic proposals that confirm my previous commitments to protect our internal market, given the concerns expressed about the backstop. On this basis, and in the light of the outcome of the European Council, I intend to put forward a motion as soon as possible under section 13 of the Withdrawal Act 2018 and make the argument for the orderly withdrawal and strong future partnership the UK economy, its citizens’ security and the continent’s future, demands.
If the motion is passed, I am confident that Parliament will proceed to ratify the deal constructively. But this will clearly not be completed before 29 March 2019. In our legal system, the Government will need to take a Bill through both Houses of Parliament to enact our commitments under the Withdrawal Agreement into domestic law. While we will consult with the Opposition in the usual way to plan the passage of the Bill as quickly and smoothly as possible, the timetable for this is inevitably uncertain at this stage. I am therefore writing to inform the European Council that the UK is seeking an extension to the Article 50 period under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union, including as applied by Article 106a of the Euratom Treaty, until 30 June 2019.
I would be grateful for the opportunity to set out this position to our colleagues on Thursday.
Yours ever
Theresa May
Transcript courtesy of BBC.com
Thumbnail image courtesy of iNews
MP’s Back Brexit Delay: A Vote for Mediocrity!
London, March 14, 2019: British MP’s vote on a number of indicative votes in the House of Commons to help the government gain some understanding of where Parliament sits on each potential pathway forward through the final days of the Brexit process.
At least, that’s what we were led to believe.
What actually happened was that Theresa May loaded a Trojan Horse into the day’s festivities and thereby received permission from Parliamentarians for an Article 50 extension.
Which was her only goal methinks, the rest of it was for show.
One Good Thing…
One good thing that came about in the voting was the complete lack of enthusiasm for a so-called ‘People’s Vote’ (a 2nd referendum on leaving the EU) which was soundly defeated 334 votes to 85 — a margin of 249 votes.
So the 2nd referendum proposal dies in Parliament allowing MP’s to get on with sifting through the dozens of other indicative proposals in a process that will push the more popular propositions to the top of the government’s priority list. (Let’s hope)
And One Bad Thing…
But not everything went well as MP’s backed the government’s motion (413 votes to 202) to extend Article 50 beyond the promised March 29, 2019 deadline.
It’s the worst thing Parliament has done since Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1937-1940) decided to appease, rather than confront, the mounting threat in Europe. Which (policy) didn’t end well.
Nor will this end well, a vote that rewards Prime Minister Theresa May’s lack of accomplishment towards a viable Withdrawal Agreement (which UK voters didn’t vote for on the referendum ballot) but which Theresa May tells us is of the utmost importance (it isn’t) and which has worked to lower peoples’ perceptions of the quality of government and timeliness of government they receive from their elected officials.
I fully expect at the next General Election there will be a thorough housecleaning as voters won’t forget what they were promised ad nauseam since July 2016, and what The Government writ large has massively failed to deliver.
Let’s remember some of these oft-repeated Theresa May statements that the country was led to believe framed her will on Brexit:
- “Brexit Means Brexit”
- “Brexit Delayed is Brexit Denied.”
- “No Deal is Better Than a Bad Deal”
- “The UK Will Regain Control of its Money”
- “The UK Will Become The Great Meritocracy”
- “Nothing is Agreed Until Everything is Agreed.”
- “The UK Will No Longer be Subject to a Foreign Court”
- “The UK Will Regain the Right to Write its Own Trade Deals”
- “The UK Will Regain Control of its Borders and Immigration”
- “The UK Will be Leaving the European Union on March 29, 2019.”
Rewarding Theresa May and her government for failing to deliver on every promise made about Brexit over the past 3-years by giving her even more time to fail is outrageous.
MP’s should hang their heads in shame and walk humbly among The People wearing only sackcloth and ashes for the next 10-years to atone for their inability to hold the Prime Minister to account and for lowering the threshold of good government, generally.
A well-known truism states that “Every day, we teach others how to treat us,” and members of the House of Commons have just taught Theresa May that incompetence, false promises, and weak government, will be rewarded with more time to accomplish more of the same (which, on the Brexit file, is piss-all thus far) and it’s shameful what MP’s have done.
No government in history has accomplished less in 994-days on their main policy platform than the Theresa May government.
Let me be clear! If Brexit doesn’t occur on March 29, 2019 as promised by the government Theresa May should be fired for non-performance. If you can’t get the job done in 1009-days (June 23, 2016 – March 29, 2019) then you don’t deserve the job!
Is that really so hard for the snowflake generation to understand?
On Top of All That: The EU is Under No Obligation to Grant an Article 50 Extension
It should be noted that the EU is under no obligation to extend the Article 50 deadline and that many senior EU and EC officials have said that the UK government would need to provide a good reason to extend the deadline. Apparently, the EU won’t simply extend the deadline just because British politicians ask for it.
Which seems completely appropriate and I will support the EU if it won’t agree to an Article 50 extension. There’s already been too much economic uncertainty, and for too long.
Brexit: Theresa May’s Job-For-Life
Theresa the Remainer has said all the right things since she accepted the job of UK Prime Minister in July 2016, yet here we are 994-days later, and now she wants an extension to get the job done that she should’ve accomplished within months of the EU referendum vote.
It seems that if you let her, Theresa May will turn the job of securing a Brexit into a job for life — a job that never completes — so that we always need her at the helm to steer it through. (That appears to be the strategy for her to remain as Prime Minister forever)
Micheal Gove could’ve gotten the job done in 1-year although he might have ruffled a few feathers in Brussels. Jacob Rees-Mogg, for another example, could’ve gotten the job done in 2-years and it would’ve been a very gentlemanly Brexit indeed, however, he wouldn’t have understood the Eurocrat mindset which might’ve caused him consternation. And Boris Johnson would’ve made a titanic success of Brexit but may have caused hard feelings between the UK and EU governments.
Still, the job of Brexit would’ve been done and dusted long ago, minus gazillions of tons of uncertainty over the past 994-days were any of those three in the PM’s chair since July 2016. Theresa May certainly isn’t indispensable as regards Brexit.
So why keep her?
As Theresa May herself has said many times, “Brexit delayed is Brexit denied,” and sending an Article 50 extension request to the EU now would kick the Brexit can down the road. Significantly.
People are beginning to tire of all this Brexit talk, it’s already dying of overexposure in the media spotlight at Day 994. Imagine how Britons will feel at Day 1374! (994 + 15 more days until March 29, 2019 + a 365 day Article 50 extension)
As I said at the outset, Theresa May loaded a Trojan Horse into today’s House of Commons proceedings and in the excitement not one person recognized how profoundly she’s changed the Brexit story.
Now she imagines she has a job for life — and for the next 12-months she’ll only fan the flames of Brexit whenever she needs support to stay in power.
Eventually, she knows that Brexit will die of overexposure in the public domain. But not to worry, she’ll have found something else by then to keep her in power, thanks to those MP’s who choose to reward mediocre Prime Ministers.
“Brexit Delayed is Brexit Denied”
Theresa the Remainer was right! Brexit delayed, is indeed, Brexit denied.
I’m beginning to think that Theresa the Remainer decided long ago that the best way to keep her job for the longest amount of time and to stop Brexit was to delay Brexit for as long as possible.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
And her enablers are those MP’s who reward Prime Ministers who can’t (or don’t want to) succeed at their primary (and oft-stated) goal.
Just in Case You’re Interested in What Britons Think About Delaying Brexit…
But it’s likely you aren’t interested in what Britons think if you’re one of the 413 UK politicians who voted for an Article 50 extension in today’s House of Commons vote, but some 43% of Britons don’t want any further Brexit delay, they just want it over and done so as to end the present period of economic uncertainty — while 38% of Britons want to delay Brexit in hopes that Brexit will simply fade away.
A majority of the UK people don’t want an Article 50 extension. They want Parliament to get on with the job of Brexit and end the present period of economic uncertainty. So Parliament votes against a ‘People’s Vote’ — but votes for an Article 50 extension. Facepalm! Image courtesy of YouGov.com
Letter to Britain 