EU referendum: 'No progress' so far on Cameron's talks

[LeftishBrit]

Negotiations on David Cameron's EU reform demands have made "no real progress" so far, Downing Street sources say.

The first EU Council session ended with no agreement on several issues as Number 10 played down hopes of a deal.

EU sources said the talks were "constructive" but said other countries had spoken out against the PM's plans....



However, he has said he will walk away from the summit without agreement unless he gets a "credible" package he can sell to voters in the referendum...


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35599279

[Bad Dog]

1. Cameron is looking increasingly desperate.

He's not daft, he knows our interests are best served by staying in Europe, and he wants to campaign as such, but if he doesn't get the changes he's looking for he's going to end up with egg on his face. Either he'll be forced to campaign for no in order to shore up his position as pm, or he'll campaign for yes and face huge criticism from the no camp for not getting anything.

Meanwhile Boris gleefully rubs his hands together.

[non sociopath skin]

2. .... and, of course, the Right-Wing Propaganda Barons, who don't feel the EU benefits them ...

... are able to make a meal of the "Bloody Foreigners" who don't support Our Lad.

O tempora! O mores! O fuck!

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

4. And in some cases don't even live in the EU, let alone in Britain..

[Bad Dog]

5. Even those that do don't pay their bloody taxes.

Being a non dom saves a shedload of money.

[LeftishBrit]

3. One day, and quite possibly on this issue...

Boris is going to find that he can't always get away with playing for both sides at the same time.

He has managed to get elected in (relatively) progressive London by running on the left of his party, and at the same time to position himself as a candidate for the Tory leadership by running on the right of his party.

But this can't last forever, and the EU issue may be what upsets the applecart for him.

[Bad Dog]

6. I remember the Guardian running a joke feature as Boris as a potential Tory leader.

It's still a bloody joke, but it might come true.

[non sociopath skin]

7. Boris Johnson - The UK's Donald Trump?

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

8. I think that honour probably goes to Nigel Farage

[Bad Dog]

9. Depends on what you see as his defining feature.

Fascism, then it's Farage. Stupid hair cut, Boris.

[LeftishBrit]

11. Very true!

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Unanimous support for UK-EU deal - Tusk

David Cameron said he would recommend the deal, which said gives the UK "special status" in the EU, to his cabinet on Saturday.
...
Downing Street said it included a "brake" on welfare payments that can apply for seven years.

Another sticking point, child benefit curbs, will apply to existing claimants from the start of 2020 and to new claimants as soon as new laws have been passed.

The UK will also be able to enact emergency safeguards to protect the City of London, Downing Street added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35616768

Well, as long as the rich are OK, and they can pay out less in welfare and child benefits, the right wing should be happy, shouldn't they?

[Bad Dog]

12. I want to stay in Yerp.

But I'll have to hold my nose, not wanting to vote for anything that would make Cameron look good. Let's just hope Tory infighting gets really nasty.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Get your big fight programme here! 4 months till the big day!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/20/uk-in-europe-ins-outs-not-clears-tory-cabinet-eu

THE IN SIDE
Confirmed:
David Cameron
George Osborne, chancellor
Theresa May, home secretary
Justine Greening, development secretary
Greg Hands, chief financial secretary to the Treasury
Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office minister
David Mundell, Scottish secretary
Sajid Javid, business secretary

Very likely in:
Philip Hammond, foreign secretary
Jeremy Hunt, health secretary
Nicky Morgan, education secretary
Patrick McLoughlin, transport secretary
Elizabeth Truss, environment secretary
Greg Clark, communities secretary
Stephen Crabb, Welsh secretary
Amber Rudd, energy secretary
Mark Harper, chief whip
Anna Soubry, business minister
Michael Fallon, defence secretary
Matthew Hancock, Cabinet Office minister

Not Clear:
Boris Johnson
Robert Halfon, Conservative deputy chairman

THE OUT SIDE
Confirmed out:
Michael Gove, justice secretary
Iain Duncan Smith, work and pensions secretary
Jeremy Wright, attorney general
Chris Grayling, leader of the House of Commons
Theresa Villiers, Northern Ireland secretary
Priti Patel, employment minister
Andrea Leadsom, energy minister
John Whittingdale, culture secretary

That looks like a good recipe for a split - a majority of leaders leaning to 'stay in', but with the grassroots of the party (the noisy part, anyway) and a significant number of leaders for 'leave'. Plus the siren call of Farage and his swivel-eye loons ...

[Bad Dog]

14. And there's two different groups vying to lead the no campaign.

It would be a lot of fun if the stakes weren't so high.

[LeftishBrit]

15. So if I vote Remain I am siding with Oliver Letwin and Jeremy *unt...

and if I vote Leave I am siding with Michael Gove and Iain Duncan-Smith?

Fun times!

[T_i_B]

16. It's going to be a dreadful campaign

Expect plenty of conspiracy theories, open bigotry and right wing ideological pissing contests from the "leave" campaign and the Tory press.

The EU badly needs reform (and not the sort of reform Cameron & Osborne want) but at the same time, it would be economic suicide to leave the EU single market.

[LeftishBrit]

17. Agree

I will vote Remain because in the present economic situation a sudden pullout would likely be disastrous; because I don't want the UK to risk becoming the 51st state under a President Trump or similar; and because many of the Leave types are seeking to promote very nasty agendas.

However, I can't say that I'll vote with enthusiasm. It's a pragmatic issue for me, and indeed one of the rather few political issues on which my views have changed over the years.

[non sociopath skin]

24. I honestly don't think that the US would be interested in taking on another offshore tax haven.

Although I recollect that there was a survey on American geographical knowledge a while back which found that a significant number of Americans thought that the "United Kingdom" was a Middle East emirate.

Donald Trump may well have been one of them.

The Skin

[Denzil_DC]

18. It will be interesting to see how turnout pans out in the referendum.

Traditionally, it's very poor in Euro elections - hence the calibre of some of our MEPs ...

If the vote is finally to stay in, it might have some lasting benefits in getting people more engaged with Europe and expecting their representatives to actually do something, rather than using the EU as a handy distractive scapegoat for all sorts of ills, from wonky human rights decisions to straight bananas, and they might end up turning out to vote in the next Euro elections.

Well, I'm allowed to fantasize, right?

I suspect the headlines in the Mail, Express, Times, Telegraph etc. are going to be even more of a sight to behold than usual over the next few months. Wonder how many of them are going to be grabbed and paraded on DU to excite the tutterati?

[Bad Dog]

19. I'm sure a lot of them will be taken as gospel, no matter how ridiculous.

The latest betting odds are for staying. I only hope the young people can be galvanised by this and actually start voting. It's their future that Gove and Farage want to piss all over.

[Denzil_DC]

26. My inclination with major changes like these

is that the status quo has an inbuilt advantage, as I think that as a mass, people are naturally conservative (small c).

So it proved with the Scottish referendum (which, whatever my own inclinations as a wary Yes-er, I wish I'd put money on at an early stage, as I'd at least have had the comfort of cleaning up), though the Yes vote ballooned from the low to mid-20s to around 45%, not least because of a piss-poor campaign by Better Together which looks even worse by the day in retrospect.

[Bad Dog]

27. No money to be made betting on this result.

The odds are way too short. There was an inbuilt advantage in Scotland though, the independents could appeal to the idea of the plucky underdog fighting against the Tories. Here the leave campaign is fronted by the most despicable of the Tories and a bunch of geriatric Little Englanders and closet racists, there's no romance there, just the ugly side of Britain we could all do without.

Having said that I'm going to be dead nervous until it's all over. If we do stay in I hope Farage's face is plastered all over the papers, that's something I am looking forward to.

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. In 1974, it was 65%, compared with 73% in Oct 74 GE, and 76% in 79 GE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975
http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

so maybe 10% below GE turnouts? That would put it at about 56% this time.

[Bad Dog]

21. In 1974 we'd only been in five minutes.

Alright I exaggerate, but back then people weren't too sure what not being in meant. Now feelings are a lot stronger. At the risk of sounding like a broken record we need some hard hitting ads aimed at the young. They won't be happy at the prospect of being denied entry to Magaluf because they've not got the right visa.

[LeftishBrit]

22. Newsthump: Michael Gove, Nigel Farage and George Galloway team up to put people off voting to leave

the EU

http://newsthump.com/2016/02/20/michael-gove-nigel-farage-and-george-galloway-team-up-to-put-people-off-voting-to-leave-the-eu/

[Bad Dog]

23. No matter what your politics

there's something there to make everyone want to throw up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. "backed by the Daily Express, which is just the cherry on top of the cake, really"

This is so close to my thinking. It's the awfulness of the vision of those to whom leaving matters, that puts me off. I suspect that economically, we're better off in, and that being in gives better protection to individuals, but it does come at the cost of bureaucracy. But I see the EU as a club that can keep the worst of the British under control.