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Brexit

Westminstenders: The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 06/04/2017 21:42

The wheels on bus start to fall off, start to fall off…

Since Article 50 has been triggered – 8 days ago:

  1. A week after a terror attack in London, the government threatened to stop co-operation over security issues with the EU. This was quickly retracted as ‘not being a threat’. Except it was.

  2. The ‘Great’ Repeal Act White Paper was published. Its vague, lacks detail, does not have a draft bill and there is no plan for a public consultation over it. It proposes sweeping powers for the government without parliamentary scrutiny using Henry VIII powers.

  3. HMRC have said the new computer system planned for launch in 2019, won’t be able to cope with the additional work which leaving the Customs Union would produce. It would be five times the work load which sounds like a lot more red tape.

  4. Spain have said they would not oppose an Independent Scotland being in the EU.

  5. May’s article 50 letter did not mention Gibraltar and after the publication of the EU draft document on how the Brexit process would be handled, this looks like a massive error and oversight. One of the clauses was that any future arrangements with regard to Gibraltar had to be settled with Spain bi-laterally rather than by the EU and the UK’s agreement with the EU would not apply to Gibraltar, unless Spain agreed. This has been taken as an affront to Gibraltar’s sovereignty, although the document says nothing about sovereignty. Michael Howard, however, decided this was sufficient grounds to threaten our ally Spain with war.

    May has not condemned his comments, and laughed it off. Though she was happy to get worked up about the word ‘Easter’ a couple of days later.

    Of course, this situation was entirely predictable and was predicted yet this situation seems to have taken the government by surprise. Our reaction, in the context of everything else, has made the UK look like a basket case.

  6. The government’s plan to run talks on the UK’s settlement on leaving the EU in parallel with talks on the UK’s future relationship with the EU has been rejected by the EU. Instead we must do things in stages, with advancement to the next stage only possible after completing the last: Stage 1 – Exit, Stage 2 – Preliminary agreement on future relation, Stage 3 – Exit/Transition Deal, Stage 4 – As third country status enter a new deal.

    The effect of this also means that deals we currently have with counties like South Korea through the EU need to be revisited. There is no guarantee these countries will want to continue trading with us on the same terms, if they do not want to.

  7. The EU has set out its own red lines. Our deal 'must encompass safeguards against...fiscal, social & environmental dumping'. Our transition deal must not last longer than three years and individual sectors, like banking, should not get special treatment.

    Donald Tusk has said we don’t need a punishment deal as we are doing a good job of shooting ourselves in the foot, whilst Guy Verhofstadt said Brexit is Brexit is a 'catfight in Conservative party that got out of hand” and hoped future generations would reverse it.

  8. May has admitted that we might well have no deal in place by the time we leave the EU. Until now we have been told we would have a deal in two years. She has also admitted an extension of free movement of people beyond Brexit.

  9. The Brexit Select Committee published their report which warned about the dangers of exit without any deal, as well as talking about problems relating to the ‘Great’ Repeal Act, Gibraltar and NI. This is sensible and you’d think uncontroversial, but the Brexiteers threw the toys out of their pram saying it was too pessimistic. The government’s job is, of course, to plan for problems no matter how unlikely – such as disasters – and to hope that never happens. It seems that these Brexiteers don’t want to act responsibility or do their job.

  10. Questions at the WTO have been asked about how Brexit will affect them. Interest in the subject came initially from Indonesia about Tariff Rate Quotas, but other parties who were watching closely were Argentina, China, Russia and the United States.

  11. Phillip Hammond has openly said that there are a number of Tory MPs who want us to not make any agreement with the EU and to crash out in a chaotic exit.

  12. Polling has suggested that people want Brexit to be quick and cheap. Not only that, but the word ‘Brexit’ has started to poll badly. Instead the Brexit department are advising officials to use the phrase “new partnership with Europe”. Lynton Crosby, the mastermind behind 2015’s Conservative victory has also warned that the Tories would probably lose 30 seats they gained from the LDs at an early election.

    Of course, even a 2020 election might prove challenging with a transition deal still likely to be unresolved as Brexit drags on. Government strategy is, apparently, to hope that Remainer's anger will have dissolved by 2020.

    Eight days in, and the Brexit Bus looks like it strayed into 1980's Toxeth and got torched, its wheels nicked, and graffitied with obscenities over its £350million pledge.
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prettybird · 06/04/2017 22:00

You Brexit. You Fix it. Grin

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HashiAsLarry · 06/04/2017 22:10

You brexit, you definitely fix it Grin

Thanks rtb

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taytopotato · 06/04/2017 22:10

Lloyd's of London moves jobs to Brussels

European Medicines Agency preprares to leave London

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Kaija · 06/04/2017 22:58

Thanks, rtb.

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EffinElle · 06/04/2017 22:59

Brexit balls up Brew

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SwedishEdith · 06/04/2017 23:19

Joanne Harris‏Verified account
@Joannechocolat

So basically, UKIP was a mechanism that allowed the Tories to get their extremist agenda in through the back door, then deny responsibility.

And when it was done, UKIP vanished, like the world's most rubbish genie into the world's least magical lamp.

A sockpuppet party, designed to speak the lines and make the false promises that the Tories didn't dare make for themselves. And it worked.

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Cailleach1 · 06/04/2017 23:24

It will be more than the European Medicines Agency, of course. Pharmaceutical companies will have to have a presence within the EU. There will have be testing for medicines being imported into the EU. Anything based in London to be near the EMA are likely to move too. I think the MHRA gets to punch above it's weight because of the EMA presence. I believe the MHRA are very well respected as a regulatory body and I've no doubt their expertise will be missed in the EU. When you think of UK involvement in the EU, we are bombarded at the moment with people like the UKIP MEP's and those throwing shapes for a UK audience. The really excellent collaborations have been on things like this. And the UK has had a very positive role.

The European Banking Authority will move too. Only 150 or so workers there though.

David Davis will have planned for every eventuality, so no need to be concerned in any way!

Harriet Harman's acting leadership was quite something. Everything was kind of waved through for the Con's. They were letting their voters down.

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Cailleach1 · 06/04/2017 23:55

That Peter Hains article was interesting, Peregrina. If it needed good leadership then, I would be surprised if anything approaching the near success could happen now.

"The privileged VAT-free status of “the rock” outside the European customs union but inside the single market has long been anathema to Spain, which has repeatedly alleged smuggling and money laundering."

It seems it was never designated the same as the UK in any case. It was in the single market, but outside the customs union. The UK as a member state managed to get it a favourable status. I can't imagine Spain will be happy to maintain this on it's doorstep. Certainly when the UK is no longer in 'the club' to divvy the benefits Gibraltar's way.

We might all be surprised, though and people might do the unexpected for reasons we don't know anything about, yet!

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SwedishEdith · 07/04/2017 00:09

Aylesbury voted to leave in the referendum Amanda Steadman added,
Britain Elects @britainelects
Elmhurst (Aylesbury Vale) result:
LDEM: 63.5% (+37.9)
LAB: 12.2% (-10.0)
CON: 11.9% (-9.3)…

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mathanxiety · 07/04/2017 06:04

The JLM has nothing to do with identity politics. It is there to help British Jews who support Israel feel that they can vote Labour instead of Conservative and still have Israel's voice heard.

It exists to put forth an Israeli pov in the Labour Party and it has links with Zionist organisations. Red Ken obv is all for the Palestinians.

"It views Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people. Its aim is to promote "a secure, progressive, just and successful State of Israel". It is affiliated to the World Labour Zionist Movement. It campaigns against racism generally (especially the British National Party) and seeks to promote a viable peace plan to the Israel-Palestine conflict. With regards to the latter it upholds the rights of the Palestinian people to live at peace with their neighbours on the basis of a Two-state solution.^
(Wiki)

[Posted this at the end of the last thread, just as a 'fyi']

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mathanxiety · 07/04/2017 06:08

SwedishEdith Thu 06-Apr-17 23:19:43

Joanne Harris‏Verified account
@Joannechocolat

Nail on the head there by that commentator. This was indeed a coup within the Tory party, and the cabal that won wants nothing short of a revolution.

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mathanxiety · 07/04/2017 06:12

Wondering if the medicines agency will move to Dublin since Ireland is the largest exporter of pharmaceuticals in the EU.

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woman12345 · 07/04/2017 06:53

Baddiel on this:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/06/ken-livingstone-hitler-zionism-jews

"That is not Adolf Hitler supporting the idea of a Jewish state (even writing that sentence looks ridiculous). It is the Nazis taking advantage of the terror and despair of fleeing refugees to get more of them to leave the country. It is just the thin edge of the wedge of Nazi horror.

The real problem, in a way, is the tone of Livingstone when giving this interpretation. There’s no sympathy. No compassion – no sense of the tragedy behind this. It’s just complacently presented as a deal that Hitler made with German Zionists, and therefore – and this, of course, is the point, the banal, shit point – a way of confirming that Zionism is bad. Through an association with the top bad thing, Hitler.

I’ll leave with the words of Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf, before he went mad, according to Livingstone. So exactly in that period when he was, as we know, supporting Zionism. I may have as much of a tin ear for meaning as Livingstone has for antisemitism, but I can’t, for the life of me, make this out to be as pro the idea of the creation of a Jewish state as Livingstone insists it is: “While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.”

So that’s the problem with Livingstone’s statement. The interchangeability of Zionist with the word Jew means that in saying “Zionism is bad”, which is what Livingstone wants to do, he emboldens Kenard, and all those like him. And, of course, he also – as I have said many times – reveals that sense that runs deep in the left, that the Jews don’t quite fit into the category of The Oppressed, and so therefore don’t deserve the same protections and sympathy as other minorities in the face of racism against them. Livingstone himself has said this in the creepingly insinuating comment that antisemitism and racism are “not exactly the same thing”

I wonder if Jewish groups are attacked and anti semitic speech condoned in other western mainstream political parties?( not FN and AFD and Putin's and ISIS's fascists)

If it's just Brexit Britain, we need to have a little think about that one.

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woman12345 · 07/04/2017 06:55

A coup, yes, that's what June 24th felt like. Ireland hopefully will do well out of Brexit. Right now I hope they do. Talk of a soft border is becoming more mainstream too.

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RedToothBrush · 07/04/2017 08:50

Last night by-election results in full

Elmhurst (Aylesbury Vale) result:
LDEM: 63.5% (+37.9)
LAB: 12.2% (-10.0)
CON: 11.9% (-9.3)
UKIP: 9.0% (-14.4)
GRN: 3.5% (-4.2)
LD Gain from UKIP

Walcot (Bath & North East Somerset) result:
LDEM: 48.6% (+11.2)
GRN: 22.2% (+0.4)
CON: 22.0% (-0.5)
LAB: 7.2% (-7.4)
LD hold

Hipperholme & Lightcliffe (Calderdale) result:
CON: 60.3% (-4.3)
LDEM: 17.1% (+6.8)
LAB: 16.5% (-0.5)
GRN: 6.1% (-2.0)
CON hold

St James (Tendring) result:
CON: 47.9% (+12.7)
UKIP: 22.5% (-16.3)
LAB: 15.0% (-1.0)
LDEM: 12.8% (+12.8)
GRN: 1.9% (+1.9)
CON gain from UKIP
(This one is in Carswell's seat)

Those swings away from Labour in certain areas is pretty consistently around the 7% - 10% mark.

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lalalonglegs · 07/04/2017 08:59

I've just received an email from the Jo Maugham campaign - the case in Dublin should get under way this month with referral to ECJ (hopefully) in the summer and a hearing around late autumn. To remind those who haven't pinned their hopes on Maugham quite so obsessively as me, in essence, the case is three-pronged:

  1. can A50 be revoked by the UK without agreement from all the other EU countries (curiously, many of the rEU worry that this will give the UK too strong a hand in negotiations while our government worries that it gives the EU too strong a hand );

  2. are the rights that UK citizens acquired through membership of the UK removable once we leave the UK;

  3. does leaving the EU mean the UK has to also quit the EEA?

    Thanks to RTB and, cor, those LD swings are impressive even in seats that they did not win. (I masochistically decided to watch QT last night and thought Tim Farron was very impressive, he seems to be growing into his role.)
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PseudoBadger · 07/04/2017 09:03

11)Phillip Hammond has openly said that there are a number of Tory MPs who want us to not make any agreement with the EU and to crash out in a chaotic exit.

Why would this be? To make a point, or make a financial gain for them?

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PoundlandUK · 07/04/2017 09:12
Gin
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lalalonglegs · 07/04/2017 09:16

That Joanne Harris analysis is spot on Star.

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RedToothBrush · 07/04/2017 09:19

Trump launches airstrikes against Syria. Something he said he opposed. Lots of supporters very upset biggly.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-russia-air-strikes-syria-suspend-agreement-memorandum-direct-conflict-military-donald-trump-putin-a7671631.html
US air strikes in Syria: Russia suspends agreement that prevents direct conflict with American forces

And this doesn't sound too good.

Is that the grinding noise of wheels falling off the Trump train and heading towards a crash?

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Peregrina · 07/04/2017 09:19

Can't bear to watch QT but I might on 27th April when it comes from Oxford. I wonder if they will pack out a Remain area with strongly Leave voters?

As far as election results go, if they are reported in the Press it will be how badly Labour are doing, but the real stories are the positive gains for the LibDems and the collapse of UKIP - with not all votes going back to the Tories. Somewhere like Hipperholme and Lightcliffe and Tendring, don't really have a Labour vote - so it looks like the die hard Labourites have kept the faith there.

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GreenPeppers · 07/04/2017 09:24

Thanks RTB

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lalalonglegs · 07/04/2017 09:26

Peregrina - you should apply to be a member of the audience.

The Syrian developments are terrifying . The wheels were quite clearly coming off the Trump bandwagon from the get-go but this could mean some sort of Cuban Missile Crisis before he's bundled out of the White House.

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RedToothBrush · 07/04/2017 09:26

Why would this be? To make a point, or make a financial gain for them?

Ideologically want low tax, low regulation state like US. Yes financial gain often part of it.

Gove has said in the past about reinvention having to come after you've burnt the building down otherwise it won't happen. Raab has written a book about low tax/low regulation. Many want end of NHS - a significant number of Tory MPs have personal financial stakes in private health care companies.

They do not want certain things highlighted in a report because that raises the chances of these issues being dealt with. They don't want them dealt with as that suits their ambition.

It'll come out in the wash eventually. It's a question of timing.

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RedToothBrush · 07/04/2017 09:42

Some interesting tweets:

Paul Joseph Watson @PrisonPlanet
I guess Trump wasn't "Putin's puppet" after all, he was just another deep state/Neo-Con puppet.

I'm officially OFF the Trump train.

Paul Nuttall @paulnuttallukip
The U.S. bombing of Syria last night was rash, trigger happy, nonsensical and will achieve nothing. I hoped for better.

Nigel Farage @ Nigel_Farage
Many Trump voters will be worried about this military intervention. Where will it end?

Katie Hopkins @KTHopkins
Who stole my President? #Syriahoax

Retweets trump saying:
Many Syrian 'rebels' are radical Jihadis. Not our friends & supporting them doesn't support our national interest. Stay out of Syria!

Comment i saw about Trump and Syria i think rang most true was not about him being pro or anti Putin, Assad or Muslim but his willingness despite America First or and other supporting ideology to go to war full stop. Whether that be Syria, North Korea or anyone else. Because he's a loose cannon.

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