The government has centralised the Brexit negotiations through the PM and Cabinet Office. Senior officials have negotiated under the PM’s authority bypassing the Brexit department and sidelining the good negotiating and political advice of two Brexit Secretaries. Cabinet members were not sufficiently involved or informed in crucial issues affecting the whole government and their departments.No wonder there have been so many resignations. Proper process has been ignored with bad results.
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November 16, 2018
It is no way to run a country. Mrs May is unfit for the office she holds.
November 16, 2018
They have gone because they found out what they had been saying was a lot of lies and did not want to be around when they were caught
November 16, 2018
Newmania
Its about time you grew up and saw the writing on the wall.
Why would you need to belong to an organisation that controls every facet of your life but makes you join by threats , blackmail and force.
May and Robbins have had a plan all along to either keep us in under any circumstance or to force a second ( engineered ) referendum
I understand that you feel safe being “looked after” by an Empire ( lots of Britons felt the same about Roman occupation) but does it never dawn on you that the wrong people could in future gain control of this and radically alter things. I dunno maybe like going to war with the USA & China?
November 16, 2018
Go on go on say it …” What did the Romans ever do for us ?” …. I suppose it depends if you prefer classical learning, roads security , literacy poetry and peace to running around painted blue in rags dying young and being at the mercy if the next fat oaf with a big axe turns up.
civis romanus sum…..
November 16, 2018
Newmania doesn’t think that deeply, Libertarian. As long as the EU is held to be the ultimate in civilisation – much in the way the Romans were – and people believe this, its own assessment of itself, then he/she is happy to go along with it, regardless of the future and our children’s future. Perhaps it is for the sake of their bank balance (as in the case of the Andys of this world.)
For them, it all comes down to finance – and sovereignty is nothing.
As you say, the idea of being ruled by an organisation that wants total control of our lives, and will achieve this by threats, blackmail, coercion and bribery is anathema to Brexiteers. But it seems as if Remainers really don’t mind as long as their money keeps flowing in.
I don’t think they have the imagination or foresight to consider things more deeply. This is tragic.
November 18, 2018
L Jones
Exactly right
Thats what I find so unbelievable about Remainers , they have no longer term view of the consequences of their actions
November 16, 2018
Oh, what nonsense!
zorro
November 16, 2018
If the ‘ever closer Union’ is such a wonderful aim, why is it that all the most important moves to implement it are cloaked in lies, or as Mr Blair has just enthusiastically labelled them: ‘camouflage’?
Edward Heath admitted lying about the Common Market being only about trade; other negotiators and politicians have lied about the Lisbon Treaty, the possibility of a pan-European army and so on. Mrs May and her Civil Servant adviser are but the most recent – and perhaps most blatant?
If you have an ideal you are working to achieve, and explain it honestly, while I may disagree with you, I will still respect you. Sadly, with few exceptions, the proponents and supporters of the EU seem incapable of this. Presumably, therefore, this comment and others like it will be met with the usual ad hominem insults from the usual culprits.
November 16, 2018
Will someone explain why two Brexit secretaries, a foreign secretary etc say the proposed agreement means one thing, as indeed you do hence their resignations and the prime minister is saying that their interpretation is incorrect.
It is in black and white for us all to see. It is like someone denying they have touched something when their fingerprints and DNA are on it. She also never deals with the substance merely parroting it’s a good deal in the national interest and no mention of manifesto/Lancaster house/leave means leave etc.
Does she think it’s a huge conspiracy against her? Please enlighten us.
November 16, 2018
Nig 1
I know your question is rhetorical
This is the level of our politics now. They all copy Blair
Bare faced lies , repeat them often enough aided by our woefully ignorant and useless media who will parrot anything for clickbait
We need a mighty and radical change in public life and our so called democracy
November 16, 2018
They are right, May is deluded. Despite virtually every MP in the commons yesterday from both the remain and side camps rubbishing her withdrawal agreement, she still insists it’s a good deal and intends to stick with it despite the fact it will never get through the commons. Nevillle Chamberlain springs to mind.
November 17, 2018
This is very unfair on Neville Chamberlain. He had the best interests of his country at heart and he had prepared its civil defence. Remember the Great War was not that far away and the country was enjoying a period of peace and increasing prosperity. Easy for us to criticise now.
What preparations has Mrs May made for a) WTO and b) a proper plan to negotiate an FTA? Chamberlain would have done both.
November 16, 2018
Worse: her apologists – people like Sir Alan Duncan and Rory Stewart – who must surely be more intelligent than she is, are employing the same methods. Don’t worry about the detail, they say, you can’t get everything you want, just get behind it. Waffle, waffle, no positive attempts to sell this dreadful document, just as they had no positive arguments to sell the EU.
November 16, 2018
John – You knew all this after David Davies resigned. Only moving against May now is too late.
November 16, 2018
She is running out of candidates for ministerial vacancies.
However, indications are that she will have to be forced out – despite any damage she does to the country or the Conservative party.
November 16, 2018
She’s a dead woman walking now .
Not even the most ambitious power hungry politician will want to risk failure by association with Mrs May .
Mrs May herself is not the problem and removing her will be far from the end of it .
She is merely a visible symptom of an out of control executive and bureaucracy which resents any notion of accountability to the people .
November 16, 2018
Well she still has Mz Morduant to promote and she is so talented that she supports legislation to allow men to become real women because they think they are. Then she could also rely on Mz Miller, who organized gay marriage and that (female MP ed)who had to leave the education dept and sits with the Remainer sisters up on the back row with their manager Legion d’ Honour ……Grieve. Rory Stewart looks good for promotion too. He was on saying that the deal meant we could leave when we wanted and have access to the single market, like Korea and Canada presumably. I had started reading his book about walking but I won’t bother finishing it. I wonder whether he has to leave his chewing gum behind when he walks.
November 16, 2018
So it seems Ms May had an agenda of her own the whole time – how did the cabinet allow her to get away with bypassing them?
November 16, 2018
Now you really know what she would have done if she had won the election by a large margin as I have always said!
zorro
November 16, 2018
The loss of two Brexit Secretaries is not careless. It is simply the sign that Brexit was an undeliverable fantasy to start with and that the people who sold it to the public do not have the political courage to admit it.
Why haven’t you toppled the PM yet, Mr Redwood ?
November 16, 2018
Tabulazero
You are seriously saying that its not possible for anyone to leave the EU ( despite the fact that 3 countries have) .
You want to belong to a supranational government that you can’t vote for and you can’t leave…. and you think we are dim…. OK
November 16, 2018
It is not possible for anyone to leave the EU on the terms and conditions that was presented to the public during the referendum campaign.
Did you really believe that it would be the easiest deal in human history ?
It was always going to be an one-sided painful process, something that Mr Redwood and his ERG friends have forgotten to mention to the voters in 2016.
November 17, 2018
Leaving is easy.
Remain have hijacked the process.
November 17, 2018
While Leavers tried to put as much distance they could between themselves and the mess they created in the first place.
November 17, 2018
What leavers?
The PM and her close advisors have transferred control over negotiations away from any leave supporting ministers and so the leaving process has been hijacked by er and other Remainers.
November 18, 2018
Tabulazero
Drivel
The terms we chose at the referendum was LEAVE
Thats what we want , It has nothing what so ever to do with the EU
Yup easy peasy, just trigger article 50 and walk away.
Once we are out we can then talk
What makes me laugh is that the facts are that the referendum offered two options
1 Leave
We were told what this meant by the government, the media and all sides in the campaign
2) Remain
However no one could tell us what this meant, EU Army? Federal EU Empire ? the Euro ?
We chose LEAVE
Since then remainers have made up all sorts of nonsense to justify losing
It was the Bus ( too late the ÂŁ350 million per week HAS been allocated to NHS)
Massive job losses as everyone leaves ( we created another million new jobs, no one left)
Recession ( fastest growing economy in EU)
OK then it will cost each family ÂŁx Extra per year ( highest wage growth in EU )
You lack credibility
Give me ONE reason to stay in the EU that can’t be achieved outside it
November 16, 2018
Well if you leave it to a remainer who is a dishonest, incompetent fool with the negotiating skills of a dim baboon then it is perhaps unlikely to be delivered. May is a blatant liar who even assured the nation in the referendum that we had control of our borders by being out of Schengen. One who either does not understand this 580 page agreement or is just lying through her teeth as to what it says. It miles away form anything remotely acceptable. She even threatens us with not leaving, surely she must be gone within the week. But them Tory MPs re-elected John ERM Major take them over the cliff for many years, so many Tory MPs can be very, very stupid indeed.
November 17, 2018
And how did David Davis fare in the negotiations ?
Pretty poorly.
All the Brexiters are trying to get as far away to the mess they created.
November 17, 2018
He had his hands tied by remainers in number 10.
Deliberately briefed against and undermined throughout.
November 16, 2018
”Undeliverable fantasy”? This doesn’t say much about your fair, democratic and equitable EU, does it? That anyone belonging to this organisation will be threatened, blackmailed and ridiculed simply because they want to leave it, is acceptable in your eyes, is it? Perhaps you could explain such behaviour to the rest of us, without equivocation.
I’m not sure what sort of world you remainder people want to live in, but it sure as hell isn’t the one most of US want.
November 17, 2018
The EU is not threatening or blackmailing anyone. It is simply refusing to make good on all the lies and half-truth peddled by Vote Leave.
The UK is leaving. The EU understands it perfectly and has at least prepared for it. I do not think you can say the same about the UK.
November 17, 2018
But we are not leaving.
Have you not looked at the proposed deal?
November 16, 2018
The loss of Secretaries of State is irrelevant. They are amateurs who arrive in the job knowing nothing and don’t add any value to what is a CEO management position.
President May should be elected separately and appointment professionals to her cabinet from outside an amateur democratic legislature
November 16, 2018
acorn
Professional negotiators, good idea. Real people with a real track record of winning large scale negotiations? Great except Donald is busy at the moment
November 16, 2018
Oh – well said, Libertarian!
November 16, 2018
Sorry but Mrs May has being doing exactly what you recommend since she became P.M. and the results have been disastrous .
She got outside consultants in to produce the manifesto and presented it as a fait-accomplis to the cabinet .
It emerged that she got outside consultants in for Brexit and the whole position of Brexit Secretary with the department which went with it was a charade .
Your proscription reminds me of CitiGroup sending Obama the list of members of his cabinet – 4 weeks before he was elected – result Wall Street bailed out and debt transferred to the public account rather than written down .
November 16, 2018
All Prime Ministers have done the same since the 18th century. A UK PM has far greater executive powers than a US President and does not have to account to the legislature to the same level as a US President.
November 18, 2018
acorn
So now you’ve contradicted yourself ! What was the point of your first post?
November 16, 2018
May is a micro manager not a strategist, She has also proved to be untrustworthy, saying one thing and doing another.
She has never had any proper Business, Commercial or meaningful negotiation experience, and has sought advice from others who again lack any experience.
This whole so called deal has been contrived, and is her stitch up against her Cabinet, her Party and the Country.
This back me or get Corby mantra may be true eventually, but that is because of what she has done, not because of Brexit or anything else.
She has been out of her depth ever since she became Prime Minister, some would argue before that, given the now state of our Police force.
The result, two years of absolute chaos which has split and embarrassed this Country in front of the World.
We now need to start again with someone new.
We do not need a general election, but do need the Conservative Party to pull together and put in place a leader with some gravitas, who can command some respect, and who can now sort this mess out and get the job done.
The only deal left now is WTO terms, because the EU has shown it refuses to make any compromises, so it must be someone who believes in that solution.
November 16, 2018
At the last election she took control of the manifesto with the resultant loss of majority. Here she took control of Brexit with similar disastrous consequences. JRM said she can’t be trusted but in the meantime her spin is accepted as if true uncritically by the media. If Trump had done this he would have been hunted and exposed on the detail I the agreement not matching his words.
November 18, 2018
am
Its not just Brexit
May and Hammond have made a mess of everything theyve touched
Universal Credit, Dementia Tax, Increased NI for self employed, Business rates, stamp duty, pensions, and now retrospective tax grabs . Now they want to tax the internet
They are totally and utterly incompetent
Yet we can’t even find 48 Tory MPs to get rid of her . Pathetic
November 16, 2018
‘Carelessness’ is more a lack of concern or attention, whereas Mrs May is not lacking in those.
Her fault is nearer the opposite. She assigns Ministers to lead in defined areas & interferes herself in excessive & errant ways. She cares, but is misguided, adding extreme levels of detail to matters where simple fundamental action should prevail.
Our freedom may be symbolised by control of a lock & key. Mrs May is uneasy with simple efficiency. Her way attempts frantically to secure it with a muddle of tacks, whacks, wedges, pieces of string & sealing wax.
November 16, 2018
I do wish politicians would refrain from using the word NO DEAL as to many it suggests nothing is in place, and no trade will exist with the EU if we do not sign up to something before or after we leave.
It is a Fear Statement, like crashing out, and cliff edge, and should be challenged every time someone mentions it.
The back stop is WTO terms as used by 164 Countries around the World including those in the EU.
The sooner we set the rates/tariffs for WTO the better.
November 16, 2018
Alan
The term NO DEAL is designed to scare
Yesterday the Federation of Small Business used the term avoiding a cliff edge . The FSB has 200,000 SME members ( 63% voted leave) 96% of their members do no trade what so ever outside the UK . The EU trades with its 2 biggest customers ( USA & China) on “cliff edge” WTO terms. The establishment is fighting to totally dominate and control us. We must not let this happen
November 16, 2018
Libertarian
Agreed that is why I find it frustrating that WTO terms is rarely mentioned, but No Deal is.
Aware you cannot challenge every false statement, but interviewers should be reminded by Leave politicians that an alternative does exist and has existed for years, and is already being used by the EU, as well as the rest of the World.
November 17, 2018
Indeed, even the vaunted EU must submit itself to WTO dispute resolution.
November 16, 2018
The FSB need to be careful if they are reliant on members subs or did they get a nice government cheque for that comment?
November 18, 2018
a-tracy
The “leadership” of the FSB are like the rest of the establishment. They can’t see the writing on the wall
They switched from local county elected committees to super regional appointed chairs. Membership has already slipped from 200k down to 160k and falling
November 16, 2018
Correct, the WTO treaties have already been negotiated and agreed and ratified; they already exist and are in legal force, solemnly binding the EU and each of its member states including the UK; and they will continue to apply to all parties after the UK has left the EU, they are not contingent on our EU membership.
Thus while we would have to try to negotiate any new special or preferential trade treaty with the EU there is no obvious need for any further negotiations on the WTO treaties themselves, only on the technical and practical details of their future application to our two-way trade.
November 16, 2018
“The loss of two Brexit Secretaries…..”
I hope she is not around to try and engage a third one.
Only a fool would take it from her if offered, given the past track recorded the way she miss manages people.
November 16, 2018
Well, she’s got a Secretary of State and a Minister now and they are both historians. One of them is even what she is bigoted against – an Etonian. I don’t suppose she will allow herself to learn anything from them.
November 16, 2018
Spinning off Oscar Wilde, if losing one is misfortune, two is carelessness, what would three be? I note there is no one particularly keen to be her next mouthpiece.
My concern is Tusk, May and others being quoted this morning as saying that if there is No Deal, there is no Brexit. “No Deal”, (better known as WTO terms or how we trade with parts of the world without EU trade treaties) is infinitely prefereable to the hashes we have been presented with.
November 16, 2018
“Three times, Mr Bond, is enemy action…”
November 16, 2018
A1
The problem is that there is no coordinated opposition.
There has to be a Brexit organisation that the public can join and support.
The press adore clickbait headlines, it makes money for them. Cliff edge, no deal, crash out are all typical press headlines. Trading normally, trading freely and WTO aren’t exciting. We need to have our own clickbait headlines
November 16, 2018
Unless they get an extension from the EU, we are leaving on 29th March 2019 at 11pm. Of course, as our kind host has stated, the government could try to stop that but that would require a vote in parliament. It is highly likely that Labour and the DUP would vote against, plus Tory BREXITIEERS.
November 16, 2018
Good morning.
And the loss of a nations sovereignty and freedom is treason.
November 16, 2018
Have you submitted a letter of no confidence?
November 16, 2018
They were Brexit secretaries in name only. Only there to give Appeaser May a superficial veneer of Brexit credibility. Rather like the overpaid MEPs who are there to help the pretence that the EU is remotely democratic.
November 16, 2018
+1
November 16, 2018
But “Proper process has been ignored with bad results” was May’s modus operandii at the Home Office too.
She seems to go into a huddle, decide upon an issue, then inform everyone including those who looked to contribute what the outcome will be. On Brexit, she has clearly been huddling with the wrong people and been led into dangerous territory. She has now delivered a lemon, and a very sour one at that.
November 16, 2018
Yes..like every other treaty/deal with Common Market, EEC, EU….done under the cover of darkness because no ordinary person would ever have agreed to the actual terms. “ Oh by the way …your fisherman won’t be allowed to fish around your coast in the traditional way and you’ll lose all your wet fish shops.”!!
Strangely, daily life means a lot to ordinary people like me. I loved this country. But now look around at the devastation brought about by 40 odd years of EU control. No Post Offices, no banks,no health services, no police, no traditional shops ..just the greedy,failing supermarkets.
And I have no doubt it will get worse and worse. Our one apparentchance of escape was just a carefully crafted illusion.
November 16, 2018
It’s not over yet.
November 16, 2018
Two years of total and utter wearisome pantomime to give the appearance of “democracy” being served while actually nothing would change. What a lark that must have been for all concerned no doubt having been told how easy it would be to fool the electorate (with the help of MSM of course).
When you really decide to leave something, what do you do? You just leave!!
November 16, 2018
I wouldn’t overstate the negotiating abilities of either David Davis or Dominic Raab.
At least the latter had a background as a lawyer before entering politics, and anyone who even glances at this 585 page document:
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/draft_withdrawal_agreement_0.pdf
can see that it needs a detailed and reliable politico-legal analysis.
Which of course we will not get from the government, from the very start our involvement with the EEC/EC/EU/USE project has been based on lies and misrepresentations.
November 16, 2018
Well how else do propose to dispossess the people of democracy and their freedom ?
November 16, 2018
Denis, the first thing I’d do as new Brexit Secretary is sign you up as an outside consultant.
November 16, 2018
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I think I finally realised that the Prime Minister was unsuitable for her post, although it was fairly obvious, when she addressed the nation at her news conference yesterday evening.
She talked about leadership being about making difficult decisions in the national interest. I am sure that being able to arrive at a decision in the face of conflicting evidence and mounting pressure is a necessary part of being a good leader.
However, I always thought that leadership is a process of influencing others and maximizing their efforts towards the achievement of a common goal.
The Prime Minister did not set out her thinking. She decided on a plan of subterfuge. She set up the bogus DEXEU but handed the real task to a civil servant. She laid false trails in her Lancaster and Mansion House speeches. She kept her cabinet in the dark and bounced them in to supporting Chequers. She tried to repeat the trick on Wednesday by giving them the 585 page draft agreement as a little light overnight reading.
She does not know the meaning of leadership. I think she has been elevated to a position far beyond her capabilities. I do not think her actions have been particularly honourable. She has lost credibility. She is not the one to take the Country forward.
As a leading brexiteer said – her actions no longer match her words. They NEVER did.
November 16, 2018
John, can you tell us if your letter has gone into Graham Brady yet? Shame on all those Tory MPs who are standing behind this deceitful capitulating deluded appeasing stubborn Prime Minister. And shame on May who if she had an ounce of decency would do the right thing and stand down and let someone more capable do the job of delivering Brexit instead of the humiliating Brino she is determined to saddle us with.
November 16, 2018
I hear Gove is not resigning. What a twofaced, gutless politician he is. He is supposed to be a Leaver and yet from day one he has done his utmost to trash the whole proceedings.
I am sure he must have been promised great things and he is the sort that only does something if there’s something in it for him. He cannot be trusted and if May gives him a higher position then she will do great harm to the party.
November 16, 2018
I thought Davis’ proposed agreement was an appalling surrender and so the prospect of him becoming Prime Minister appals me. We do not need to come to an agreement with the Commissioners of the European Union, we should not wish the European Union well; we should just leave and encourage the enslaved peoples of Europe to leave too – and that would really frighten the Commissioners.
November 16, 2018
Agree.
Mrs May has very deliberately undermined her Brexit cabinet ministers and used them as a smokescreen for her ulterior proposals. Duplicity at the highest level.
How any cabinet minister can have confidence in Mrs May I don’t know.
November 16, 2018
The EU is not trusted as is May, Hammond, Olly Robins and the Barnier, Junker Tusk etc.
Trust is kike glass – once broken impossible to fix.
Folks gave May a chance but she has failed.
Brexit is a poison chalice job.
The UK needs a conviction politician to step up.
The timing of 100 years since WWI should not be a white flag event.
Freedom is priceless not to be thrown away.
November 16, 2018
I do not see a confidence vote coming on Mrs May, the fact is they haven’t the numbers to defeat her.
I see the withdrawal bill going through parliament, most MPs in parliament are globalist, over two hundred Blairites and over 200 wets in the Tory party, 12 Libs Dems, Greens, 35 SNP, Labour MPs will defy the whip and Torys will vote with the whip, the reason blairites will defy the whip, they won’t want to hold out for a second vote and will take what they have got, as long as they are in EU in some way they don’t really care, same with the TORYS.
November 16, 2018
Not only has our PM been a liability to the Conservative Party she is a great danger to the future health of Great Britain. The solution is clear., She must go. Save the party and the country in just one move. OUT!
November 16, 2018
Bypassing everyone except her own sycophants is Mrs May’s MO. She did exactly the same in her disastrous election manifesto that lost her thousands of votes to Labour and with them, her majority.
This style of Governing is more in keeping with the likes of Saddam, Stalin and the EU itself. Whatever it is, it is not Democracy as we know it and it MUST be prevented by our own representatives in Parliament. Time for them to rise up?
November 16, 2018
If they offer you Brexit Secretary John, for goodness sake take it. But seeing May choose her best friend for Work and Pensions (which should be a split portfolio as they are conflicting) just confirms how weak and wobbly the woman is that she needs people who just agree with her next to her.
November 16, 2018
Rudd looks like coming back into the cabinet to bully around the others and lead for a second vote if May fails.
November 16, 2018
So true, there has been a lot of dirty work going on and Mrs May has been at the centre of it.
November 16, 2018
John..nobody gives two hoots about your 39Bn arguments..am afraid J R-m and you guys jumped too soon..the tide is going out as liam fox and Gove can clearly see..you guys will pay the price for setting the country on this road
November 16, 2018
I can’t believe it . She’s weathered the zephyr of dissent and is going to survive .
Tory MP’s are going to let Mrs May off the hook for her betrayal .
If that happens nobody will believe a word this zombified parliament says again .
November 16, 2018
Mr Redwood, you have lost this battle badly and will have no choice but to resign from the Tory party as time go on, you have been outmanoeuvred from the word go, just like Mrs MT was. you don’t seem to understand that your party is a European party and not the UK party If you fight on inside the party, you won’t get anywhere, all-new party members will be wets from now on.
You either starts a new party with friends and fund it and have it as an English party only or stand as independents, you will have to save face at the end of the day, if you stay in the party you will be seen as being complicit in what has happened to the country by the people.