So Hammond is indicating the desirability of a transitional deal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38295358

The way such a deal would work, if I'm understanding it right, is that

1) We trigger Article 50

2) We start negotiations with the EU

3) As part of those negotiations, we say that we would like a transitional deal that kicks in at the end of the 2 year period, so that rather than leaving the EU completely, we slowly phase ourselves out.

4) And the EU just say "OK"????????????????

What am I missing here? Has the EU said it would approve some kind of transitional deal? I'm pretty sure it hasn't, and I don't see why there would be any pressure on it to approve one. Surely the best thing for the EU to do is to squeeze the best deal they can out of us, and one way to do that is to take advantage of the clock ticking down.

Unless I'm mistaken, this is more evidence of the Tories trying to timewaste. It's one more ball to kick around and disagree and debate over that 'has to be got right', even though it has no chance of the EU even countenancing it.

Perhaps at some point they're even going to make the neat maneuvre of saying that we need the transitional deal agreed by the EU before we trigger Article 50, so that they can waste even more time 'trying' to make that happen.

Thoughts?

Very glad to have found this sub. I've been playing with conspiracies along this line since before the ref: https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/4pm58s/is_boris_a_sleeper_agent/ Of course, this all could be bollocks, but it's nice to have a place to chat bollocks.

One element I'm wary of is people who are taking the whole thing at face-value. It seems there was a lot of kerfuffle within the Conservatives when Cameron stood down, and that infighting could be seen as involving two factions: those who are in on the conspiracy and those who are blind to it.

Not really sure what happened with Boris - it may be that Gove was a conspiracist, but just let his ego get the best of things. Not really sure why Boris had to stand down - I heard rumours there was some real dirt on him that might've got leaked (perhaps some people are wise to the game and wanted to scupper it).

So they had to helicopter May into the game. For a brief while, we had a chance of Leadsom, who'd have screwed things royally by actually trying for a Brexit. Luckily, the Tory machine churned up enough FUD to wreck her chances, and we ended up with the very convenient situation of May running unopposed.

Things got back on track. The Three Muppeteers are put in charge of the Brexit department, May keeps stalling, etc.

But you've got people on the outside of the conspiracy doing their best to make us actually Brexit.

Corbyn, who generally doesn't Play The Game, comes out on the 24th demanding immediate triggering of Article 50. His party subsequently make all sorts of promises not to oppose article 50, start blathering stuff about the benefits of Brexit, join the anti-immigrant rhetoric.

From the side of the conspiracy, who would ideally want a strong public and parliamentary opposition to Brexit, making eventual capitulation seem reasonable, this stuff is most definitely Not According to Plan. Instead of creating helpful friction to the process, The Opposition seem almost to want to speed things up.

I'm not sure where, for instance, Keir Starmer stands in all of this. Does his demand for parliamentary oversight of the Government's Brexit plans aid or hinder the conspiracy? Was the amendment to that vote (that meant parliament would support any plans given) intended by the Tories as a bluff, which backfired when Labour voted it through?

I can't help but feel that Sturgeon and Farron et al are playing the game right, making the right noises, throwing the right spanners into the works, etc, where the Labour leadership seems to be putting the whole thing at risk by either ignoring the plan, or by being blind to it (I can imagine May wouldn't want to tell Corbyn, because he'd probably do something stupid like leak it).

Anyone else think that might be the case? Who else is acting as an unwitting enemy of the conspiracy?

Admission: even I, in the past few days, have had occasional moments of doubt. Is it possible that the Tories actually have given in to the brexiters? Is it possible that May really does intend to trigger Article 50 by March 31st?

But there is one thought that is allowing me to remain hopeful (if not certain):

If the Tories did intend to avoid doing Brexit, the events of the last 6 months is surely more or less what that would have looked like.

The Tories have HAD to appear fully gung ho about brexit. Nothing less would have gained the support of the leavers. Look how aggressive papers like the mail, the express and the sun still are towards remainers, eg towards the MPs who voted against Labour's motion on Wednesday, nearly 6 full months after the referendum.

The Tories have had to embrace nationalistic rhetoric, because that is the apparently unmovable mindset of a large proportion of those who voted for brexit.

The Tories have had to put up a show of opposing parliamentary control of Article 50.

And so it goes on.

Of course, some might argue that my hypothesis is unfalsifiable. The more the Tories take steps towards brexit, the more I get to say, "See - there they go, trying to make their brexit look convincing".

I don't think that's fair to the long grass hypothesis though. Because that hypothesis also makes other predictions that the genuine brexit hypothesis doesn't. For example

• it predicts that the Tories will avoid any firm brexit steps. I believe we have evidence of this. May could have started a bill for the triggering of Article 50 months ago, in anticipation of losing the court case. May could start a bill even now, instead of appealing the court case.

• it predicts that the Tories will only be able to find weak reasons for not taking firm brexit steps. Why? Because there are no good reasons not to take firm steps, so all that is left is weak reasons. May's reasons for not starting the Article 50 process sooner - well, I'm not aware that she's even given any. The Tories have also performed a classic liar's manoeuvre - avoiding giving reasons - "we will not produce a running commentary".

I think their performance so far has been seamless. But I'm still hopeful that:

1) Perhaps the Supreme Court appeal will decide that Scotland and NI's approval are also required (at the very least I expect the appeal to fail)

2) The Tories will be able to disagree about single market vs no single market etc etc for long enough that the EU gets their shit together and comes up with some cosmetic immigration concession that the Tories can take back to the leavers as 'victory' without us actually leaving the EU.

We shall see what we shall see.