Brexit train wreck approaching

Jeremy Corbyn’s personal approval rating has slumped, and the recent local elections were an indecisive wash. But if you thought that the Tories could continue to tread water until 2022, the next time that elections would have to be scheduled, think again.
The Tories' determination to maintain a "hard Brexit' is about to run head-first into reality.

Corbyn has his own Brexit problems. Corbyn's political strategy so far has been to ride the fence on Brexit, and force the Tories to commit to a flawed strategy, rather than give the Tories a target to blame.
In other words, Corbyn is using Napoleon's strategy:
"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."

So far Corbyn's strategy has been working.
The problem is that the Labour MP's are freaking and are nearly in open rebellion, even when their own position conflicts with their local voters.

However, Labour's Brexit problems are a molehill compared to the Tories' Brexit Mountain, and Corbyn called PM May out on it recently.

Theresa May is currently in the middle of what might add up to be her greatest mess thus far on Brexit. Her foreign secretary is calling her own customs policy “crazy” on the front page of the Daily Mail. The Lords have defeated her EU Withdrawal Bill fourteen separate times.
... Corbyn asked all the right questions, most of them short and to the point. There was nothing that could fairly be described as not so much a question as a rant for the purposes of a viral social media clip, which has become his standard tactic of the last year or so.

Instead, he simply asked, “Is the prime minister’s customs partnership crazy?”

And the house looked on as the prime minister’s lips moved, sound came out, but anything that might be described as the high ground opened up and swallowed her whole.

“We are leaving the single market, we are leaving the customs union, nothing has changed Lancaster House speech mumble grimace Florence I’ll tell him what’s crazy I’ll tell him what’s crazy!”
...
“How can they negotiate the best deals for Britain,” Corbyn asked, “when they’re only interested in their own futures?”

Boris Johnson’s countenance did not shift, but it did turn a touch more crimson. It is a question to which Theresa May knows she has no answer. She is in highly inconvenient thrall to a political psychopath.

Corbyn's roasting of PM May was just exposing how completely unprepared and ill-led the British government is for Brexit.
Politically, the Tories have no plan at all, and when the clock stops on Brexit they will completely implode. The Tories are so deadlocked on Brexit that they can't even talk to themselves.

Prime Minister Theresa May canceled a meeting of her inner Brexit cabinet scheduled for Thursday as she struggles to break a deadlock within her government about what Britain’s future outside the European Union should look like.

The UK is due to leave the EU at midnight on 30 March 2019, and the Tories don't even know at this late date what they want to happen?!?
It gets worse. Only this week, just 10 months before Brexit, the Tories finally got around to asking the most important question of all.

The U.K. government has asked business groups to map their supply chains to flag the areas of the economy most at risk if Brexit imposes additional trading costs on exporters, two people familiar with the matter said.

One of the people expressed bafflement that it’s taken so long for the government to ask for the data. It’s just 10 months until the country formally quits the European Union, and Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet -- and indeed her Conservative Party-- is still procrastinating on what kind of customs arrangements to pursue post-divorce.

This is a political and economic disaster, not just waiting to happen, but firmly scheduled.
All Corbyn has to do is a) keep his MP's from losing it for a few more months, and b) have his own Brexit plan that actually makes sense and is realistic.
Because unless Labour's neoliberal Blairites save them, the Tory government is headed for an epic collapse sometime in the next 10 months.

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when the characters decide to spend the night in the spooky, abandoned house.

Former U.K. Prime Minister John Major said Theresa May’s quest for a post-Brexit alternative to the European Union’s Customs Union that provides for frictionless trade is one that’s doomed to fail.
“No doubt many goods can be cleared in some invisible, frictionless way -- as yet unidentified -- but not all,” Major said, his tone laced with irony. “Ingenious options – well-meaning options – have been proposed but rejected by Cabinet sub-Committees, with the limp promise that further ideas will be sought. No doubt the search will intensify -- but I doubt it will be successful.”
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@gjohnsit
they decided to split up and try to find out where that strange noise is coming from.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd

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Cassiodorus's picture

It seems to me that if the whole of the capitalist system is endangered by the daily functioning of the system, and if the numerous accumulation of ills continues to make the self-undermining, that a "realistic Brexit plan" doesn't exist. Is Corbyn ready for post-capitalism?

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

that have been coming from British media outlets (including the BBC)--accusations which seem to have been the results of coordinated, and relentless onslaughts by Corbin's political enemies against him--I suspect have not helped him much either in the personal approval department. Many of these political enemies are in his own Labor party, and many of them are even aligned with Israel and they do not like Corbin's positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Non-stop propaganda works the same in any country where a relative few powers control most of the media. You repeat lies long enough and often enough, and after awhile significant portions of the population are affected.

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Wink's picture

nor tails of their "System." Didn't Corbyn win the whole enchilada last year? Didn't voters vote to Brexit last year?

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Roy Blakeley's picture

@Wink Labour made great gains under Corbyn in the last election, but Theresa May was able to cobble together a coalition to stay in power for the time being. Voters did, indeed, vote to exit the EU. However, there are many things that have to be negotiated to implement the separation and there are conflicting interests. For example, trade terms have to be negotiated. The question of whether there is a hard border between Northern and Southern Ireland has to be worked out. Ireland will be in the EU. Northern Ireland will be in the UK. A border with rigorous passport checks and customs checks will be very inconvenient. On the other hand if these things are not in place, anyone from the EU could simply enter the UK at the border, and vice versa, with no passport or customs check. Residency rights have to be negotiated. Will EU citizens living in the UK have to stay? Will UK citizens residing in the EU have to leave. A complicating factor is that the EU "constitution" now enshrines neoliberalism, and some EU governments would like to punish the UK for having the temerity to leave this neoliberal utopia.

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Wink's picture

And this is why
@Roy Blakeley
I don't even bother following the Middle East b.s.
Things (and "regimes") there change literally overnight.
It's difficult enough keeping up with the daily b.s. right here in der Father Land ~er Homeland.
By the time I get half a clue as to what's going on in the M.E. it changes the next week, so...
I don't even bother.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Alligator Ed's picture

From one the essay links--in the comment section thereof comes this:

riggbeck
1 month ago
Corbyn is the most progressive leader Labour has ever had, but he's barking mad about Brexit. Nor do I buy the nonsensical claim that the UK wouldn't be able to carry out his policies as an EU member. Scandinavian countries are far more progressive, and the EU hasn't stopped them.I could not vote Labour because of this, even though I used to be a member and like Corbyn's non-Brexit policies. Membership of the EU is far too important to throw away without a fight. Fortunately, I live in Scotland, so there's the SNP to vote for.

If the UK under the Tories wasn't already neoliberal, then leaving the EU might make sense. Considerations other than tariffs concerning EU membership could be effectively instituted by a move to a soft exit. I will be publishing an essay about the EU tyranny imposed by Brussels.

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