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stepping down to spend less time with family

No mate. You don't hold a gun to the country's head as a negotiating tactic. You try to get a deal. It's highly irresponsible, and rather than calling it undemocratic, you should be thanking the MPs that are working to take no deal off the table - it would be a fucking catastrophe for this country. Don't buy into the bullshit that this is weakening our position. It's an utterly fucking reckless approach, taken by men that stand to lose nothing if it goes wrong, whilst you and I and the rest of the country would be left picking up the pieces for years. What's more, taking us out with no deal wouldn't be the end of it. We'd be back at the negotiating table immediately trying to work out the future relationship while the country burned. As far as any politicians can be called "heroes", the ones that are fighting to take no deal off the table at the minute fit the bill.

"We're only worried that your performance level could be affected by a potassium deficiency"

Schar = wanker

Probably going back to the snooker full time

Agree, why the fuck should people know this stuff unless it interests them or it is important for their job. Most MPs are also ignorant. Having a referendum on it was madness.

In much more important news... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-49495145

The way the two sides have entrenched themselves has led to the leave=right wing racist/remain = traitor rhetoric. I know I come across as the most pro-Corbyn poster on here which is fair despite my doubts about his leadership at times but I'd say he was the only leader to actually try and bring the two sides together. That may be because he's actually a leaver in a mainly remain party but it's also true. Nearly everybody on here would like to see revocation by whatever means but I think there's too much contempt for leavers at times. Some of them deserve it but not all. This was in reply to zerosum BTW.

Stop calling him Boris, he's not your mate. Did you refer to the last two PMs as Theresa and David?

Started & finished the move....decent point in the end for Ireland though..

what we need is for ken to come on and tell us we're going to lose - that's the only way we're winning from here.

On the plus side, Ken should be back this weekend.

In the Brexit committee Michael Gove has just finished answering a series of questions about how Dover would cope with lorry arrivals in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Hilary Benn, the committee chair, did not sound hugely reassured, and he concluded by asking Gove to admit that no one actually knows what will happen in the event of no deal. Gove did not contest this, but replied: Benn said unfortunately the Almighty would not be appearing as a witness.

There's that anti-semitism she was complaining about.

And get rid of a few of those around him too.

You're certainly not alone in that thinking and in fact you're exactly the sort of voter that a leader needs to win over in order to get into power. I've said it before but if Labour kept every one of Corbyn's policies but put in place a more charismatic and politically adept leader then they'd walk the election.

I've argued this strongly at work with people who didn't even know about "De Ffeffel". It's like when they humanised the bitch with "Maggie".

I do understand that, and honestly it's helped no one that the attitude exists concerning Leave voters. I think the truth is that the left has a lot of cultural power (ceded to it by the right in exchange for financial and political power IMO) and so tends to be able to weaponise things like this. From our side though, leavers should perhaps understand that we have been totally ignored throughout this whole process. 16 million of us voted to Remain, and now we're faced with the hardest possible iteration of Brexit. That isn't democratic, at least not to me - not while perfectly good compromise options exist. If May's deal had gone through, and many Remain MPs voted for it, then leavers would have got something like a 90% pure Brexit. It was worlds away from a compromise that I would have accepted. At no point in this process has anyone given a damn about what people like me think. Even Labour has routinely ignored the Remain wing of the membership (85%) in favour of trying to find a compromise position that by the looks of it was about 85% pure Brexit, a stance that ultimately forced me to resign membership earlier in the year because they expected me to take one for the team with hard Brexit, and then vote them in anyway. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how to better discuss the issues in a less inflammatory way and I really think that rebranding the whole schism as globalism vs anti-globalism gets us away from all the negative labels and into the territory of a useful discussion where everyone can make salient points - especially because the two concepts span the entire political spectrum. There are left wingers as fervently opposed to globalism as right wingers are. And vice versa. No one should feel shouted down or silenced in their political opinions (EDIT - necessary clarification - as long as those views aren't inciting violence), and some of the ways people of left wing persuasions handle themselves in such discussions is borderline tyrannical. I myself have the badge of honour of being called out as a Nazi (on here at least) on several occasions. Elsewhere I'm a commie bastard apparently, but in truth I tend to get more abuse from the left than I do from the right. I consider myself moderate left for what it's worth. Economically left wing, socially centrist (which I broadly define as not giving a fuck as long as things are fair).

Agree with all that pretty much. And this stand off last few years has enabled the extreme on both sides to gain followings. Partly because 90% of people get their information from the internet or TV news. Guilty here of that too I suppose. Whats increasingly annoying for me, which became instantly apparent after the referendum is when you say you voted leave you are immediately branded right wing or even racist. Id consider myself centre.. I agree with what some left say, and some right, I’ve been a floating voter in the past and gravitate toward relatable leaders as well as policy. But these days I tend to keep quiet about voting leave, or fear a “wtf” type reaction and having to explain myself over and over. It’s tiresome. Like on this thread haha.. seriously though, the reaction of some of my wife’s friends to my leave vote was incredible. Still is. I have to keep my mouth properly shut when they come round or I will get the doghouse Drives me mad, I’m just a normal bloke man not a monster! And can see how this is pushing more and more people to sides with extremes, being fuelled by media.

I know what you mean. I also think that given the increasing push to the hard right across Europe in general, the EU needed to take people's concerns with respect of resistance to globalisation a bit more seriously. Either more work needed to be done on making it 'work' for everyone, or some compromises needed to be made concerning immigration which would at least offer a short term statement that the powers that be were indeed listening. I say both these things as an immigration approving globalist myself. Having said this, so much misinformation has been applied by the right wing press about this issue (may be true from the 'left wing press' too I suppose, although whenever I try to imagine that I only manage to come up with The Guardian, which I have seen publish Anti-EU articles in the past, and the Express, which I don't read - and it's unclear how much of an impact either have compared to the Mail and the Sun) that one of the other big issues we were always going to have was that any such moves by the EU simply wouldn't be reported on. Has the Daily Mail ever said anything positive about the EU? I doubt it. On that basis, people who solely read it for their information on current affairs apparently now think the EU is a second Nazi regime that is force-feeding us immigrants and overruling our laws left and right. It's hard to combat that level of misinformation if you're a reasonable institution, as the EU broadly is. So if the EU had indeed given us anything, I think that the best we could have expected from the Daily Mail and other right wing press outlets would have been "Britain, Kings of Europe after Cameron brings EU negotiating team to their knees" or "Britain defeats Germany for a third time without even firing a shot" - the kind of thing that doesn't at all reflect the reality of what is going on, and simply seeks to draw lines between us and them. It simply kicks the can down the road and means that the next time a Tory leader needs a quick poll boost, the EU have to hand over even more special treatment. Eventually you have to stop handing out freebies or everyone else starts to feel that it's unfair - as they did. Compounded by the fact that successive British governments have used the EU as a convenient scapegoat for all kinds of policy failures, it's easy to see why people who tend to the right (and indeed the hard left) were quick to jump on the opportunity to give them a kicking. The EU simply doesn't have as much influence on our lives as people are making out - the UK Government has always had far, far more. And yet people wave away the misery inflicted under austerity without a second thought, the lack of proper policy initiatives surrounding integration of immigrants into British life, poor investment in education and vocational skills training, falling police numbers, and so on - voting back in the very people who were delivering it, so that they can get rid of a political institution that is responsible for about almost nothing that affects people's lives in a meaningful (negative) sense.

Piers Morgan told him it would be fine

Yeah, not going to disagree on this. The EU wasn't exactly super helpful in the run up to this, including Merkel's 1 million Syrian refugees 3 months before the vote, but on the other side, we did have the best deal in Europe out of any other country in there already...

Nice to see Leavers weighing in here though btw, the standard of discussion has improved as a result.

It may have been highlighted many pages ago and I've just stepped in late to the party, but for those who actually want to leave the European Union (not Europe) then surely from a negotiating point you want to position yourself so that the other party has a cliff to fall off too? By taking no deal off the table then you're offering the EU the upper hand. At that point they know that the negotiating is on their terms, otherwise no Brexit. I don't actually think Boris genuinely wants to leave without a deal, but he is playing a good bluff. The way in which this whole debacle is being played out is highly undemocratic. You had a majority vote which isn't being honoured due to a minority of people who were not elected to govern making that decision.

None of the people voted for no deal at least though. We know this because literally no one from the leave campaign said it was on the table pre referendum. And I think all the main parties who voted for article 50 were fairly clear that they wouldn't back no deal. Seriously, this actually is a right wing coup. It just is. Had May just fucking compromised instead of being stubborn and dictatorial, we would 100% be having a Brexit. Not as hard as no deal, but harder than I would have liked for sure. By going all in on the hardest possible version of this, the ERG have it all to lose. I remember back in March, Nick Boles voted for Mays deal. As a remainer. And he told the ERG that if they didnt vote for it, then he and many others would give up on a deal and start resisting Brexit full stop because anything further to the right of her deal was too harmful to accept. They were warned and they did it anyway. Only. Themselves. To. Blame. You should be angry with the people in charge of the Tories currently because they've risked the whole thing for a pure Brexit that a 48:52 split does not legitimise.

The thing that annoys me most, isn’t the fact this is dragging on forever (thats fucking annoying though).. but it’s the politicians who repeatedly state nobody voted for no deal. It’s as bad as leave means leave. Regardless of the referendum result and what people actually voted for, it was those very same fuckers who triggered article 50, with the very real risk of no deal being the outcome. It’s the biggest welch on a bet ever. they are all arseholes - every single politician- on every side!

I have to mention this, a fantastic touch after such tragic circumstances. https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/heartbroken-family-boxer-scott-westgarth-16862772

I didn’t mention glass coffee tables, you filthy beast.

Corbyn going for an election as soon as the Benn bill has royal assent. Fucking naive old fool.

Pure galaxy brain logic. “Actually, we think you’re very good which is why we’re throwing bananas at you”

IT'S FUCKING STUPID!

Unlike the shite stain on that seat in the SoL

Dell-usional.

Last time there was a PC bloke there it was to arrest Adam Johnson

The first 10 seconds or so of this masterpiece manage to eloquently summarise the feelings of the majority of football fans, and good people in general.