Westministenders. The Stage is set for a New Act. Boris and friends hit 2017.

[RedToothBrush]

BREXIT: THE CAST

Royals:
The Queen – The Queen.
Prince Phillip – King Edward VIII
Prince Charles – Deputy Queen
Prince William – Does what granny tells him. Likes rhinos and elephants
Duchess of Cambridge – To be pimped for Brexit
Prince George and Princess Charlotte – Marketing Opportunity
Prince Harry – Once dressed as a Nazi. Now supports the enemies of the new Nazis: Army Veterans and the disabled.

The Government:
Theresa May – Would be Mrs T Mk II but more like Little Miss U-Turn. Clueless and incompetent. Makes her predecessor look good.
Phillip Hammond – The Brexit Grinch
Boris Johnson – Your tactless relative that always embarrasses you at parties and when you go out with him in public.
David Davis – Mr –Brexit-- er Fudge It. Former Mr Parliamentary Accountability
Liam Fox – The Dodgy Doctor. Likes his foreign expenses and hospitality. Would like to own a Tardis.
Liz Truss – Head of the Formerly Independent Judiciary. Responsible for creating the new HM Riot Service.
Amber Rudd – Head of UK Cover Ups, Reknown for trying to suck up to the Head Teacher
Chris Grayling – Work shy Head of Transport who thinks trains and planes aren’t his problem to sort out.
Damien Green – Fagan. Quite keen on the return of the workhouse
Jeremy Hunt – Minister of Health Care Franchises.
George Osborne – The Sudden Apologist. Wants a second chance.
Michael Gove – Brutus. Lest we forget.
Anna Soubry – The Token ‘Good’ Tory. Unless you are a leaver. Then she's a monster from the swamp.
Ruth Davison – The Strangely Likeable Scottish Tory. Moonlights as a Stand Up Comedian
Jacob Rees Mogg – Aristocrat who owes it all to his nanny. And the Chancellor who just gave his wife’s family estate £7million
IDS – The kid at school who thinks he knows everything but is always completely wrong

Labour
Jeremy Corbyn – Geography Teacher with some very dodgy mates.
John McDonnell – Appears to be a Tory Sympathiser
Keir Starmer – Lefty Liberal Human Rights Lawyer. May’s worst nightmare
David Lammy – Apparent swamp MP.
Owen Smith – Who?

UKIP:
Farage – Lazy, corrupt Oswald Moseley. Next PM or Deputy PM. Maybe first president of the FUKD. If the plan to become the 51st State fails.
Arron Banks – Owner of 1 star rated car insurance company
Andy Wigmore – Medalling foreigner.
Paul Nuttall – Scouser. Keeping Farage’s toilet seat warm.

Liberal Democrats
Nick Clegg – Yellow Tory. Except he's a Remainer, so that makes him even worse as King of the Swamp.
Tim Farron – Tiny Tim. Makes mountains out of molehills, just by standing next to them.

Others:
Nicola Sturgeon – Leader of the Resistance. Separatist leader
Michael McGuiness – Famous English politician [sic]
The Eleven Supreme Court Judges – EU Agents
The Lords – More EU Agents
Juncker - Drunk
Guy Verhofstadt – Head of British Trolling
Donald Tusk - Wants to ban British cake from Europe
Michael Barnier – Our worst nightmare. French. Probably likes stinky cheese and onions.

Now to write the script….

Join us, for the laughs and lows, the tears and tragedy in 2017.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my Remainer & Leaver MN ‘friends’.

(Oh hell where would we be without a little cheese at this time of year?!)

Thanks Red

Love the intro!
Merry Xmas to you too

Thanks red

Best intro yet Red. Keep up the good work!

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Love it

Merry Christmas to all

Henry Mance ‏@henrymance
Under Cameron average salary of special advisor was about £90k
Under May it looks about £95k
So talk of clamping down on excesses looks odd

Obama has banned offshore drilling in Artic and Antarctic today.

Meanwhile letters between Trump and 'Mad Alex' Salmond have been published about the wind turbines off the coast of Scotland. In them Trump says that Salmond would be cause an economic disaster and end any possible chance of Scottish Independence.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/letters-donald-trump-alex-salmond-wind-turbines_uk_585908ede4b0acb6e4b90a9a

They sound like the rantings of a mad man. Noting the capital letters and felt tip underlining.

Excellent Red!

Just a couple of footnotes - JRM is in business with the Ukip donor who made a fortune shorting the £ on referendum day, and Arron Banks wants to buy the Daily Telegraph but has a small problem in that only one of the Barclay brothers is a Ukip supporter fan of Farage. The other one can't stand them and doesn't want to sell the paper to Banks. He's also the reason that Farage only gets occasional columns in the paper rather than the full-time Boris-like job NF actually wants (that would be in addition to the job he already has and fails to do, plus his new favourite job as Trump apologist)

The AB/Telegraph stuff was in this week's Private Eye, the JRM bit was in the last edition.

Noting the capital letters and felt tip underlining.

I assumed they would be written in crayon...

Letter 7 in that list is hilarious in the utter pointlessness of it!

I'm wondering if we could re-imagine "The Man In The High Castle" as a Brexit drama.

The problem is it already feels we are living in an alternate reality

The illicit films circulating would show happy prosperous citizens of the EU ....

The last few posts wrt Ireland, NI and UK relationship from the old thread:

Peregrina Wed 21-Dec-16 16:09:01
Re Ireland, I suspect that May for once is actually just stating fact (not meaningless platitudes). With Ireland being in the EU and the UK out, there will need to be some rethinking. One might try to contrast it with Norway vs. Sweden and Denmark, who have traditionally had close relationships, but Norway is in the EEA and all are in Schengen, so the comparison doesn't hold.

The idea of N Irish having to have passports to come to the rest of the UK to me, sounds like the death knell of the United Kingdom of GB & NI. I am not a betting person, but I think we could see a united Ireland within 10 years (maybe 5, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of founding of the republic?)

SapphireStrange Wed 21-Dec-16 16:14:35
Either a united Ireland or more Troubles.

lurkinghusband Wed 21-Dec-16 16:48:04
I am curious about where the traditional antipathy of the Unionist NI population to a united Ireland stands relative to the expressed desire to continue in the EU ...

Brewdolf Wed 21-Dec-16 16:58:09
WRT Ireland there was talk before Brexit of an inter EU challenge on the British-Irish agreements, as it technically favoured one nation over the others. I suspect a fall out from Brexit, should we continue with the CTA agreement, will be that challenge being made and possibly ROI being forced out of it (largely because unless things go very tits up for the EU, then ROI get more from being in it that they do from us).

mathanxiety Wed 21-Dec-16 17:24:13
The traditional hardline Unionist vote (DUP) in NI was pro Brexit for the most part. NI as a whole voted to Remain; Remainers included more moderate Unionists. Hence tension in NI.

Theresa May seems to make a habit of gratuitously offending and causing consternation. There are millions of Irish living in the UK, not to mention those in NI who legally hold Irish passports as opposed to UK passports and would bitterly resent having to apply for a UK passport either because of Brexit and a retooling* of the Ireland-UK relationship or because of some ID scheme.

*Retooling apparently means dismantling the Good Friday Agreement, a horrific prospect to nationalists and most likely moderate unionist opinion (and business interests) in NI and probably to most of Ireland too.

I do not think TM has the deftness of touch needed to handle NI. We have already seen what looked like the start of a cosy relationship between her and Arlene Foster (hardline Unionist) at the Tory party conference, which was most unfortunate. It took decades of work and the involvement of both the EU and the backing of the US government (and the personal involvement of Senator George Mitchell and his staff) to lay aside the suspicion of the nationalists in NI that some parties in NI were more equal than others when it came to the relationship with Westminster. A policy of divide and conquer in NI will not work at all because it would represent a return to the days of Unionist supremacy, which nobody but the hardline Unionists thinks of as a good thing.

And Merry Christmas to all!

Carried over from previous thread to so that we know where we are:

WRT Ireland there was talk before Brexit of an inter EU challenge on the British-Irish agreements, as it technically favoured one nation over the others. I suspect a fall out from Brexit, should we continue with the CTA agreement, will be that challenge being made and possibly ROI being forced out of it (largely because unless things go very tits up for the EU, then ROI get more from being in it that they do from us).

Do you mean the RoI gets forced out of the EU? Or forced out of the CTA agreement? As you say, RoI has done well out of the EU. It's also got them away from being something of a colony of England IMO, and given them more confidence of their identity. I don't think they would ever forgive us if they were forced out of the EU.

Thank you yet again, Red. Super intro!

TheBathroomSink, that's fascinating about Banks and the Telegraph. To think we on MN framed the Tory Leadership Election as a Murdoch v Dacre v Banks battle in terms of power and influence and stated that Banks wanted to be the next media baron.

How unsurprising he's been making advances to the Telegraph.

The Barclays Brothers are 82 though. I guess which one dies first might be important.

Great intro for the ongoing Westminster pantomime, Red

A curious mini-reshuffle - haven't counted the number involved, but it would be lovely if it was eleven lords a leaping

Re: Copeland.

There is a lot of gloating on twitter about getting rid of a Blairite.

Was Jamie Reed really likely to be deselected by the local party at the next election?

Only obviously with Sellafield being the main local employer and what with Barrow in Furness where Trident is built being just down the road, I can't see JC being too popular in this neck of the woods even with Labour voters, and him campaigning here could easily be totally counter-productive by drawing attention to that. Of course if he doesn't show his face, then he also criticised for that too.

A pro-Corbyn candidate isn't going to be a good move for that reason. Yet loads of people saying that a well known name from outside the area or a pro-Corbyn choice are the way forward.

The choice of candidate by Labour really could be make or break this for the party.

I'm starting to think that Jamie Reed resigning is possibly the worst MP that could have for Corbyn, whilst Andy Burnham is possibly the worst choice Labour could have made for their Greater Manchester mayor candidate (A lower profile individual would likely win but without all the other publicity).

So who could possibly be the worst choice to run for Labour in Copeland as they have to be favour to be picked.

The most practical solution for NI is to allow FOM and single market type rules across the border with ROI and enforce passport control/customs when entering or leaving the island. I would imagine the EU will be open to negotiation to ensure ROI isn't more shafted by Brexit than it is going to be. I'm not sure there is much appetite either side for unification. An aspiration that must never be obtained said someone much cleverer than me...

However this leaves some very annoyed Loyalists, some of whom might be a headache in the HOC and others who still have a stash of guns and will not be happy at having to get out their passport to go to their mainland.

Thanks for Fred and his intro, red

Returning to my qn about police monitoring Caroline Lucas:

I've never heard that she has any connections to animal rights terrorists, or indeed anything other than peaceful protests (even if I sometimes disagree with her various causes)

Is it likely now, with the upsurge both in Islamic terrorism and far-right hate crimes that the Met have switched their resources from her to them ?
Or is peaceful protest against government policy regarded as dangerously subversive ?
(even our Freds ?)

The Greenland & Faroes / Denmark relationship looks applicable to NI:

"The Danish Realm is an official term for the constitutional relationship between Denmark proper and the two overseas constituent countries, Greenland & Faroe Islands, which collectively constitute the Kingdom of Denmark."

"Although Denmark is a member of the EU, both areas have special dispensation and remain outside the EU" - Greenland left the EU in 1985.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_Realm

Unionists would probably enjoy belonging to the "British Realm" but it would take some negotiating with Republicans and RoI

Unionists would probably enjoy belonging to the "British Realm" but it would take some negotiating with Republicans and RoI

It wouldn't have be called a realm though, surely?

Even if it were, would it not be the opposite way round?

It's Denmark that's in the EU, Greenland & Faroe Islands aren't.
So by that reasoning, UK & NI would be part of the 'Irish Realm', with Ireland being part of EU & UK/NI not?!

Realm's definitely not going to work, we're a republic remember? 😀But the Danish thing is interesting. And what's the story with the Channel Islands- they're not in the EU are they?

I think NI solutions are available but a big problem is that Tories have never understood That Island and the lack of thought about it so far underlines this. If they are clueless about how Brexit will work for England, there is no hope for progress on NI.

On the plus Ireland is for the most part an EU success story (the Celtic tiger was badly wounded but not killed) so there will be a lot of EU goodwill there.