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Category: Article 50

Desperate times. A new way out of the Brexit impasse

Desperate times. A new way out of the Brexit impasse

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8/ So the Government can't pass its deal The Government can't negotiate a new deal There is no Parliamentary support for No Deal The Opposition can't force an election The Tories can't call a Leadership challenge Immovable object meets brick fucking wall pic.twitter.com/qL16HuqMDO — James Graham (@mrJamesGraham) January 16, 2019 The train is hurtling down the track and the cliff edge of 11pm on 29 March 2019 approaches. The overwhelming majority of the House of Commons is unwilling to countenance…

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Punters now think it is even less likely that the UK will leave the EU on March 29th

Punters now think it is even less likely that the UK will leave the EU on March 29th

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To my mind the most significant thing to come out of the catastrophic defeat for the government on its Brexit deal was the statement by Theresa May that she’ll look to consulting with other parties. I just wonder if that is paving the way for a second referendum. Clearly the other main parties, LAB after its likely confidence vote failure tomorrow, the SNP, the LDS, PC and the Green are all committed to a second vote. It would be politically…

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On the spread betting markets the number of Brexit deal “ayes” for TMay’s deal slips five during the afternoon

On the spread betting markets the number of Brexit deal “ayes” for TMay’s deal slips five during the afternoon

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For me the most satisfying, if risky, form of political gambling is on the spread betting markets where the more you are right with your prediction the more you win – with, alas, of the converse being the case. So on SportingIndex this afternoon there has been a lively market on who many MPs are going to vote “Aye” in the voting that starts in less than an hour. At 3pm you could have “sold” the number at 222 MPs…

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On this day lets not forget the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to the troubled province

On this day lets not forget the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to the troubled province

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Wikipedia Let’s not forget either the DUP’s popularity within the province One of the issues with the politics Northern Ireland is that the Republican party, Sinn Fein, refuses to take up its seven seats at Westminster. This means that of the 18 constituencies in the Province seven do not have active MPs. It also means that the only Westminster representation comes from a party that got just 36% of the vote there in June 2017. This makes the parliamentary representation…

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If the Article 50 exit date gets deferred it could raise doubts about whether the UK ever leaves

If the Article 50 exit date gets deferred it could raise doubts about whether the UK ever leaves

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A deferral on March 29th could lead to similar calls once the extension ends Lots of talk today about the possibility of the March 29th Brexit deadline being deferred because the UK Parliament does not have the time left to enact the required legislation. Apparently six bills would have to complete the parliamentary process before the article 50 deadline of March 29 when the country is due automatically under the legislation that allowed the Article 50 notice to be given….

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What happens when the anti-Brexiteers are united – those who want it are split

What happens when the anti-Brexiteers are united – those who want it are split

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This week’s latest Westminster scorecard : The Executive NIL Parliament TWO By any standards the events that we are seeing at Westminster over the process of the government’s EU Exit legislation are completely unprecedented. Generally parliament is very much there to follow what the executive rules and Westminster’s structures and rules are designed to achieve that end. The two defeats for the government that we’ve seen yesterday and today are designed to eat away some of the executive’s power in…

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After a dramatic day in the Commons punters on Betfair make it a 64% chance that the UK will NOT leave EU by March 29th

After a dramatic day in the Commons punters on Betfair make it a 64% chance that the UK will NOT leave EU by March 29th

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Betdata.io How Parliament Voted: Amendment 7 (Yvette Cooper Amendment) pic.twitter.com/QRk3Ok02bM — Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) January 8, 2019 The Commons defeat for the government with the almost unprecedented cross-party nature of the vote has seen punters being even less convinced that the UK will leave the EU as planned on March 29th. The election Maps Tweet above shows the party breakdown which looks set to be a good indicator for future votes. Quite where this goes now is hard to…

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Trying to work out what is Britain’s European Strategy

Trying to work out what is Britain’s European Strategy

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Other than, arguably, joining the US in the second Iraq war in 2003, the worst post-war strategic mistake made by any British government was the decision not to join what became the EU in 1958 at the start. Had it done so it would have played a leading role and would have helped shape it into an organisation with rules, aims and a culture with which it could have been much more comfortable. Rather than being seen as a foreign institution,…

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