Does anyone remember the Conservative Party slogan from the last election?

@SW-User Its like I say, ALL options are impossible but something has to give. What you say is all true. I can also see May doing a month of pointless fake negotiations with the EU and then coming back to parliament and saying its my deal or hard-Brexit. Late January is the deadline and she is stubborn enough to take that risk for what she has committed too. In such a scenario and with a sinking pound, MPs will be under pressure.

@Burnley123 Yes, that looks to be her only strategy now.

@SW-User Indeed and its an awful strategy for the country. Nobody will be happy with this.

@Burnley123 My feelings on Jeremy Corbyn have got nothing to do with anything that I've said in my comments. Sure, I think that he is naive and more than a little backward thinking (not to mention his tacit support of known terrorist groups - I mark that under naive........when I'm feeling generous) but, what I've outlined is the reality of how he became party leader. And the reality that he has said nothing tangible about Brexit.

You, and many others, say that Theresa May's deal is a bad deal. Bad in what way? Every time that I look at the Parliamentary debates, every time that I look at news coverage of the deal, all I see is people saying what [b]could[/b] happen. And this [b]"could happen"[/b] scenario is based on two premises. First, that we (that "we" includes the EU) will not sort out the details during the transition period. Second, that the EU will force us to stay in.

Why would any of that happen? Can you imagine what would happen to the Brussels grandees if they were seen to be actively preventing a democratically elected referendum result from being enacted? Can you imagine what that would do to the stability of the EU itself? They may not want to encourage others wanting to leave, but they sure as hell don't want to be portrayed (in such certain terms) as undemocratic bullies.

How can the same be said about UK Conservatives. In terms of political ideology they are out of step with the EU in one way and one way only. Sovereignty. In terms of security and military, they are only out of step on the topic of an EU military force. And that whole idea has garnered very little support from anybody in the EU. Although, what with Trump's anti-NATO sabre rattling and his BS foreign policies, that could change.

@room101 There is a lot to get through but I'll try and be precise.

Firstly, I know the process of Corbyn's election because I was part of it myself and I read up on the history. You describe it pretty well tbf. What I don't get is how he manipulated the system? His success was a surprise to everyone, including himself but fair within the rules. He also won on existing members in both elections. He got 49% in the first round in 2015 but nobody seriously thinks he would not have got a majority in second and third preference votes in later rounds. It wasn't a narrow victory but a landslide.

I think you are a social democrat and a social liberal. I also noticed that your political compass is the same place as mine so I think its a case that we draw different conclusions from the same values. You don't like Corbyn on foreign policy, particularly the Israel Palestine conflict. This is something where we have talked before and know each other's positions.

Corbyn didn't become Labour party leader because of these positions, though his opposition to Iraq probably did no harm. Labour (even under Ed Miliband) had accepted an austerity-lite agenda that tacitly supported most of the Tory cuts and never made a consistent political case against them. This has been criticised by many non-radical economists; such as Paul Krugman and Simon Wre-lewis. The other Labour candidates began the leadership election by hinting that they needed to be closer to the Conservatives in terms of policy to win elections. They may have been 'left-leaning' in party affiliation and tradition but were not left-leaning in practice. At the time, I considered myself to be centre-left but was so disillusioned with the Labour mainstream that I joined and campaigned for Corbyn because he was saying in plain English things that I actually agreed with. Through the process of being involved, I've moved further to the left but still consider myself a pragmatist in terms of strategy.

I will criticised Corbyn's current stance on Brexit because I don't think he can get a better deal. If he ever could, he can't at this stage. I want a second referendum because of the real damage that Brexit could do to communities like the one I grew up in. Most of the people there voted for Brexit because of fears of immigration and also because (understandably) they feel they have been left behind economically and have drawn what I see as the wrong solutions. I am happy to debate this with people. I also don't think these people voted for either May's Deal or the reality of a no-deal Brexit? If the Brexit deal delivered greater prosperity and cut immigration, I would be against it but accept it because of the vote. What people voted for won't happen.

What is wrong with May's deal? A lot. It is not a hard break so will not satisfy Brexiteers. It takes Britain out of the Single Market but not Northern Ireland, which is a crazy imbalance. It keeps us all in the Customs Union but without the Single Market, that will still be bad for the economy. It guarantees state Aid (which might stop Labour nationalising railways) but doesn't protect workers rights or the environment. The one thing it does claim to do is control freedom of movement but it allows movement for 'key-skill' workers and will probably compensate for the lack f EU immigration with more people from former colonies. I am speculating here but that is what the CBI would want and Brexiteers won't like that. Also, the deal kicks down the road other issues such as the NI backstop or whether there will be a hard border in the Irish Sea. May thought her fudge could work politically but we will be in an even weaker position to negotiate stuff after we have left.

I think this deal could still get passed because May will spend the next months ostensibly negotiatng with the EU, get nowhere and then say to MPs that it's her deal or hard-brexit.

@Burnley123 Perhaps my use of the word "manipulate" implies some kind of nefarious activity. That wasn't my intent. A good strategist recognises an opportunity and knows how to manipulate and exploit that opportunity to his or her benefit. The ethical element comes in on how that strategist does these things. I'm not commenting on Corbyn's ethics, I'm simply stating a behaviour. A behaviour which he has been repeating ever since the referendum results were known. As I have stated in previous conversations (and I think that you agree) that behaviour is not in the best interest of the country. In my not so humble opinion, it is in the best interest of Corbyn. I don't think that it's even the best interest of the Labour Party long term.

I agree that you and I have the same values and that we don't apply those same values in exactly the same way. We don't agree on the Israel/Palestine situation. We've briefly spoken about the nationalisation of our rail network and we didn't seem to agree on that. I dare say that, if we were to discuss other issues in detail, we would agree on the problems and may not agree on the solutions or on how those problems arise. But I'm cool with that. It's what makes, and keeps, constructive debate healthy.

I don't like to apply political labels to myself because those labels seem to be very inconsistent. I suppose the only label that I'm comfortable with is left leaning centrist. That's where my political economics lays. That's where my social economics and values lay. I think lol. Labels really bug me.

If we look at the referendum in the binary way in which it actually was, Brexit means out of the Customs Union, out of the Single Market, out of everything. I think that we both agree that that would be detrimental to the nation in many, many ways. However, where you may see potential solutions in some of the options being talked about, I see a distinct lack of reality. Just today, Tusk again re-iterated that there is no other deal to be had. Maybe it's a bluff. Maybe there is wriggle room to be found. But it won't be found by "ostensibly negotiating". I don't believe that May has ever done that and I don't believe that she will be doing that in the coming weeks either.

I do not agree that we will be in a weaker position to negotiate come March 2019, because I don't see it in terms of strength and weakness. I see it in terms of the reality that we and the EU will be in. We leave in March 2019. That's our reality. That's the reality of a 27 nation EU. Unless we cancel Brexit.

I do not see a second referendum as any kind of solution for two reasons. First, I think that it would cause possibly irreparable harm to our democratic process. In my view, the argument of; "do we hold a second vote everytime we don't like the first result", is a valid one. Second, I have no faith in the result that it would yield. What happens if we get another Brexit vote?

As I have already stated, May ratified all EU law into British law in January 2017. So your, and Corbyn's, criticism on workers rights doesn't apply. It also doesn't apply on environmental issues for the same reasons. Not to mention the environmental strategies that we are signed up to outside of our EU membership.

Immigration was an issue during the referendum lead up that particularly turned my guts. Successive governments have actively sought cheap labour from the former colonies and elsewhere. Bottom line, the immigration that everybody was up in arms about was that of dark skinned people and Muslims. EU membership, on such immigration, is tangential at best. The whole fiasco was unbridled racism fostered by the likes of Farage and all the others of that ilk.

@SW-User I think May is stiff competition for that award now. How could she have done worse in this process?

@Burnley123 Good point. I think with hindsight she might get the benefit of the doubt for being dealt a losing hand.

@Burnley123 I think, in trying to placate many within her backbenches she tried to be as 'agreeable' as she could to all sides rather than being strong. Seen as a leader happy to represent her country and those within it.
May not have cut much ice with some but at least everybody would have seen what she was trying to do.

@Northwest Queen of denial

Even the Conservatives press here are calling it a Government in crisis.

@Dan193 Somewhere between zero percent and nought[big][/big]. The Conservatives will pick a new leader before that and I am not sorry to say that they will have an ugly civil war.

@Burnley123 No, no civil war. The politicians can fight each other..sell box tickets.

@RodionRomanovitch The are incompetent bastards too. I remember previous Tory Governments being nasty but smart. This bunch are nasty and moronic.

@Burnley123 i think its heroic she stays with the sinking ship unlike that crazy blonde guy whose name i forgot and others who left the ship like rats

@NoSugar David Cameron.

Yea May is staying with her ship and driving it faster and harder into the iceberg.

@NoSugar hahaha theresa May heroic......you've set the bar very, very, very low for that epithet