BREXIT and its outcome.

Zoron, I'm not getting that at all. Difficult economic times ahead, yes, but had line free market ideology, no. Rather the opposite. I see protectionist measures being taken, which by the way, given the state of the economy when they get implemented, won't be a bad thing. The hard line free market people were all in favour of the EU, it doesn't get much more hard line free market than that.

I also see Labour winning on the next elections.

Hello Zoron. I'm a Brit living in an EU country (recently took the citizenship of my adopted country so I'm technically no longer British).

What are Theresa May's intentions with Brexit? As far as I know she was on the remain side so why did she choose to be the one to make Brexit happen? Pure opportunism? And does she really think they can get a good deal or are they secretly counting on no deal? I can't tell whether the government is delusional or whether it's all part of a sinister plan.

Can't believe it's been two years since the vote. That was a surreal and emotional day!

Hi Demeter,

The BREXIT crisis is partly a right-wing plot, heavily financed with dark money, and partly stupidity and right-wing madness, and partly that about half of the population of England are right-wing, reactionary, quite racist, and xenophobic. This is balanced by the voters in Scotland, and Wales, who are less reactionary, but could not this time outweigh the right. it was fought as an immigration and racial issue, with lots of lies, scare stories in the mainstream right wing media, and biased TV coverage. We are now stuck with the result. Theresa May is now openly derided and jeered at, as prime minister, as it is clear that she is utterly incompetent, cannot and will not make decisions, and appears to be terrified of the situation she finds herself in. The Conservative party is almost on the point of splitting. The left here in the UK are split as well, and the Labour Party leader has lost his nerve on the issue. 

Divination has given me some clues. It looks bad. We are heading for a hard BREXIT, without an agreement with the EU States and Parliament, that they can accept. So basically, I see very nasty things happening. We are headed for an extremist right wing regime, with severe free market policies. There will also be an economic crisis, as the hard border exits large numbers of foreign companies, and exports fall catastrophically. I get that there will be a lot of political turmoil, public protests, and even civil disturbance and violence. There will be a crisis involving the Scottish Government, and severe disruption in Ireland. There will be an attempt to seal the Northern Irish border that endangers the peace treaty. But mainly, I am getting the future volatility of the situation. The UK will go through a very bad time.

Zoron, thank you. As always I follow this topic closely as it affects me directly as a EU citizen in UK. I love this country and love my city and the area where I live, it is overwhelming majority remain and people are just lovely, so Im in a bubble but know lots of people have had racist abuse since the referendum, all the closet racists are out now and feel that they have a voice. Young people feel betrayed and disappointed and scared about their future. We as a family are thinking about moving to another EU country as our business would collapse without free trade agreement. Lots and lots of educated, hard working Europeans are leaving. Lots of British citizens in EU are feeling neglected and scared about their future, for example access to health care in their new country. 

I don't see anything that could be called a "hard border". Some sort of border checks will appear, but they will be as quick and simple as humanly possible. Anything else could disrupt trade to such an extent that supermarket shelves would go empty.

Zoron, you keep saying that you see a government that is in favour of "extreme free market ideas" and at the same time would impose a "hard border". It has to be one thing or the other. They're logically incompatible. Free market ideology goes with open borders.

Demeter, I don't think that May was really on the remain side. I think she was a closet brexiteer, and just pretended to be on the remain side to keep in good terms with remainers. The feeling I get is that she honestly believes a deal is possible, and she's trying to get there. And some sort of deal will definitely happen. But it will be incomplete, missing a lot of parts. And that will cause a lot of problems and economic pain. But it won't be "no deal".

All the resignations today, first Davis and now Boris Johnson! What are the chances of a General Election? Or a second referendum?

May will fall. There will be no second referendum. I see a shadow over Westminster.

Who will take her seat? If Bojo becomes prime minister... nobody will take uk seriously.  I feel all this is going to be huge disaster.  Very unsettling. We need a miracle. 

I was not surprised at the situation, and the resignations. It looks bad. it will get worse. The next four weeks are crucial. May will not survive, ultimately, but will cling on for a while. The Tories will try and find a compromise leader, but will face serious trouble from the rest of the parliament.  The Ulster Unionists will end up in disaster, and we will end up with a non  functioning    Zombie Government. An election is possible,. If that happens, Corbyn will win, by a narrow margin but that may change. Corbyn is anti-EU. So the disaster will continue. The time lines are all over the place. will watch carefully. Its going to take a week to settle down, and to get a clear scanning of the situation. What a mess. 

The chances of a second snap general election are pretty close to zero. It didn't go well the last time around, so the Tories aren't repeating that mistake. And the chances of a second referendum are also pretty close to zero. No point for the Tories in asking again.

May is holding on for the moment, but she won't last till the end of the year. Michael Gove is the most likely replacement right now. Which means a pretty hard Brexit.

Posted by: Zoron

I was not surprised at the situation, and the resignations. It looks bad. it will get worse. The next four weeks are crucial. May will not survive, ultimately, but will cling on for a while. The Tories will try and find a compromise leader, but will face serious trouble from the rest of the parliament.  The Ulster Unionists will end up in disaster, and we will end up with a non  functioning    Zombie Government. An election is possible,. If that happens, Corbyn will win, by a narrow margin but that may change. Corbyn is anti-EU. So the disaster will continue. The time lines are all over the place. will watch carefully. Its going to take a week to settle down, and to get a clear scanning of the situation. What a mess. 

Without a doubt Zoron, I keep seeing different time lines and outcomes. Usually I see one and the strength of it makes me sure in its outcome.  For the past 2 years I've been sure that Brexit won't happen. Somehow it would be dropped. Time would convince the public it's a bad idea and there would be no backlash when it was dropped. 

I agree, May won't survive. I see a vote of no confidence.  Rees-Mogg will put his name forward but pull out I think he prefers being King-maker.  The suprise I see is Gavin Williamson the Defence secretary. If he's not PM when May goes he eventually will be. 

When the Scottish Independence referendum took place in 2014 my first thought was No but Yes. Now I'm sure Scotland will achieve Independence but Brexit will cause it. The differences in political thinking and attitudes north and south of the border will widen. 

At the moment it's such a mess.  I'm always being tempted to read the news to justify my visions, but like Trump in the US there is so much back-stabbing and things going on behind the scenes that you will never be sure of the outcome. 

I think May has strengthened her position, she's ousted two of the main hard line brexiters and replaced them with loyal supporters.

May can now push ahead with her soft Brexit which will be even softer after the EU waters down the proposal to the point where it's almost the same as staying in the EU except without any voting power. This takes the wind out of the SNPs calls for a second Scottish independence referendum and keeps northern Ireland close to the UK.

Boris Johnson will never be Prime Minister as he showed himself up as a fool of a foreign secretary. His career as an MP may be over as I can't imagine him coping on the back benches. Maybe he will go into journalism.

I can't imagine Gove as Prime Minister, he's too feeble and loyal to May, May's keeping him there as he's a brexiteer but he's easy to control. There's only around 80 brexiteers in the Tory party, the other 236 are more pro-eu, so it's unlikely a brexiteer will be voted in as Prime Minister.

If there is a leadership contest there would probably need to be another general election shortly afterwards to be viewed as legitimate. A general election and a second referendum won't happen because they are just too risky after the Tories almost lost the last general election, better to cling on to power as they are.

The brexiteers could push the nuclear button and trigger a leadership contest but this would send the Tory party into complete and utter self destruct mode. Plus it's likely TM will win this contest anyway.

May will step down before the 2022 general election but Brexit would be all done and dusted by then.

The brexiteers that voted Tory in the hope of a hard brexit will be pissed off and won't vote Tory again.

If there's a financial crash between now and 2022 the Tory party are finished.

Stu, leadership contests in Britain don't have to lead to general elections to be seen as legitimate. In Britain you vote for the party, not the leader. May didn't call for snap elections because there was a question about her legitimacy, she did because she foolishly thought she'd get a lot more seats for the Tories (dead wrong about that) and that she could keep the Tories in place till Brexit was completed, done and dusted.

I don't see the Tories accepting a much softer Brexit than what is now on the table. If you look at their actions, rather than their words, it's fairly clear that many support it more strongly than they admit in public. If there was such an overwhelming support for remaining among them as you are saying, it's very hard to explain why Cameron's case for remaining was so half-hearted, and even why he set up a referendum in the first place. If there were so few brexiteers, he could have got away with breaking his promise to do a referendum.

they don't have to call a general election after changing the leader, but I don't think the public would ever fully accept a change of leader without putting them through a general election first. The public don't like to have leaders forced on them. If the Tories want to win the next general election it wouldn't be a good idea to have a prime minister in place for 4 years that the general public haven't chosen. The public may be able to cope with a new leader for a year while they settle into the job but anything beyond a year would be a problem. 

any brexit deal will need to be approved by the house of commons. A hard brexit won't be approved. The only other option is a super soft brexit which could be passed with the help of the opposition parties. This is why Theresa May is already courting the opposition parties trying to win support for her plan because she doesn't have the support within her own party. 

Can anyone shed light on what Corbyn’s strategy is? He’s remarkably quiet on Brexit and the Vote Leave law-breaking. Is he hoping the government fully implode and a General Election is called? I sincerely hope this is the likely outcome, it looks very bad right now.

 He's sitting back watching what's happening.  He's funnily enough in the same position as May, he has MPs in his party who are Brexiteers and there are Labour constituencies that voted Leave.  The feeling I'm getting is that he doesn't really want a GE before Brexit. If Labour form a government he's going to have to juggle the same balls as May.  And I think his guilty secret is he wants out of the EU too. 

Are there any indications we should be thinking about leaving the UK by April next year? There are some scary scenarios being shared around. 

Celticwitch has described Corbyn's position to a dot.

About leaving the UK, that's obviously a very personal question depending on your personal circumstances. I'd say, if you have ties to another country and you are comfortable going there, you probably should think about it. Things can get pretty messy in the UK. That assumes, of course, that the other country is in a better position. Leaving the UK to go to, say, Spain or Italy, may not be such a brilliant move.

If you don't have ties outside the UK, that probably reduces your options to English-speaking countries. Some of them, again, don't look like they are in a better situation than the UK. So your choices are pretty limited, and also depend on where your income comes from. If you are retired, you can probably get your pension pretty much in any English-speaking country. If not, moving would probably be rather more complicated.