[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Which happy day will that be? End of March, next year when little will change because we're in 'transition'. Or after 2 years of that (no wait, it's now 3 years transition). By that time we'll have a new govt./changed our minds/ or totally watered it down. We could have even put our reapplication to join in by then

Indeed. Watering down is what Brextremists fear and is looking increasingly likely as Brexit becomes more and more like a box-ticking exercise. Albeit one which has seen EU regulators leave the UK together with their well-paid jobs and numbers of civil service bureaucrats escalate whilst NHS funding has failed to keep up with costs.

Today's news is likely to discomfort Brextremists:

Mandarins opposed to exiting the EU 'forcing weak PM into soft Brexit'

A Cabinet source warned that Britain faced a “betrayal of Brexit” unless Theresa May reined in Sir Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, and Oliver Robbins, the co-ordinator of negotiations with the EU. David Jones, the former Brexit minister, said: “It’s time No 10 indicated who’s boss.”

Theresa May to hold crunch talks as pollster warns of heavy losses in council elections
The pollster in question predicted last year's surprise election result so is being taken incredibly seriously.

Theresa May will hold talks with her top team on how to head off major losses in the upcoming local elections, as one of the country’s top pollsters warned Brexit could hit Tory electoral chances. Elections expert Sir John Curtice, who predicted last year’s shock election result, said the Conservatives could lose more than half of their London boroughs in the May elections, which are being fought mostly in Labour heartlands or Remain-voting areas like the capital.

UK heading for 'dilution of Brexit', says former minister

The Conservative MP, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said there was "a real danger" the UK will sign up to an agreement with Brussels which could "keep us in the EU in all but name".
Her comments come amid growing Tory party rifts over Brexit.

Jeremy Corbyn convenes ‘away day’ to discuss Brexit policy shift

The news suggests Labour may soon announce a major shift in policy that would see it back permanent membership of some form of customs union with the EU after Brexit – opening a potentially decisive dividing line with Theresa’s May’s increasingly fractured government.

Some prominent leavers are now realising that extending Article 50 might be better than a transition deal.

For Rees-Mogg, this sort of thing represents an unacceptable loss of sovereignty. He challenged Davis: “If on 30th March 2019, the UK is subject to the jurisdiction of the ECJ, takes new rules related to the single market and is paying into the European budget, are we not a vassal state?”

Davis replied: “If that were going to be the case in perpetuity, my answer would probably be yes, but the answer for a short time, no.”

To this, Rees-Mogg shot back: “It’s hard to think of any precedent in the world where an independent nation has taken the judgments of a foreign court as its superior and immediate law without having any judge on that court.”

He asked Davis to “be honest about it. We are de facto staying in the EU for two more years,” so “why aren’t we just extending Article 50?”