My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Brexit

Westministenders: Happy Xmas (War is Over) - if only

999 replies

RedToothBrush · 07/12/2017 14:00

When is lying not lying. When you can get enough of your mates to agree it is not lying.

And so we have David Davis, who has made two statements to parliament which deliberately contradict each other and must constitute some sort of lie to parliament at some point however you cut it.

Will the Speaker risk the wrath of his party to uphold democratic values? We watch carefully.

Davis also reveals and exposes May too though. May one way or another is complicit in Davis’s lie, either through not doing her job in reading the reports or by protecting Davis when she knew the reports did not exist. This is gross misconduct in her inability to ensure her staff do their bloody jobs. All so she can keep her own job.

This is where whistleblowers in other institutions pop up.

It has also become apparent that May has not had THE conversation with the Cabinet over what shape Brexit should take. After 18months.
Why not? Is she incapable of consensus building or is she just incompetent?

And then we have the DUP seemingly not being properly being involved in the wording of the all important document.

Vote Leave’s Oliver Norgrove is perfectly right in saying that Hard Brexit is all but dead. Don’t let that make you feel happier. Hard Brexiteers know that there only option now, is No Deal and that’s what they will try and pursue.

There is no deal until everything is settled. Right now, nothing is settled, not even what the UK want out of Brexit, never mind the EU position.

May might well have blown the only opportunity for a deal too, because of her failure over NI and the DUP. Where does she go from here? The idea that she will stand up to anyone, is ludicrous given her track record.

We might all wish we could John Lennon's song was apt when it comes to this Christmas and Brexit, it seems the war for our future post Brexit, it seems it is only just starting.

OP posts:
BestIsWest · 07/12/2017 14:01

Thank you RTB.

LurkingHusband · 07/12/2017 14:03

.

RhiannonOHara · 07/12/2017 14:06

Thanks Red.

woman11017 · 07/12/2017 14:12

Flowers red thank you

turkeyboots · 07/12/2017 14:16

Thank you Red from a long time lurker.

OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 07/12/2017 14:21

Thanks red.

A small ray of hope - the "strengthening our negotiating hand" project has now reached it's funding target

Jo Maugham QC‏
@JolyonMaugham

And we're funded. Thank you so much everyone. And sorry for clogging up your twitter feeds

The @GoodLawProject and @MollyMEP have today issued proceedings against @hmtreasury and @DExEUgov to obtain the studies I continue to believe exist.

We will shortly publish our grounds and witness statements from three experts and both of the claimants.

(Yes, @DavidDavisMP, yes @PhilipHammondUK, that is a deliberate burn. The people should get to see what their money pays for).

Here's what I say in our press release (as just hopping onto a plane)...

Jolyon Maugham QC added:

"Let him throw his smoke bombs. David Davis can't escape from one simple principle: a Government of the people should never hide from the people what it plans to do to the people."

RedToothBrush · 07/12/2017 14:23

uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-parliament-exclusive/exclusive-eu-parliament-details-uk-concessions-on-rights-idUKKBN1E1001
Exclusive - EU parliament details UK concessions on rights

Britain will guarantee rights for as yet unborn children who join EU parents after Brexit and accept EU judges’ rulings on such rights, according to a draft European Parliament resolution seen by Reuters on Thursday.

and

It also lays out demands from the legislature, which must approve any treaty. These include limiting British benefits from any future agreement and an insistence London continue to abide by the European human rights convention. It also insists that Britain automatically adopt any new EU legislation passed after it loses its vote during a transition period after March 2019.

and

The draft makes no mention of a point under discussion on Monday when talks were interrupted that would end supervision of EU citizens’ rights by the European Court of Justice after a certain number of years. Two EU sources said that a compromise of 10 years - midway between a British offer of five and an EU demand of 15 years - appears the most likely solution.

One EU source said the compromise may be presented as two years during the transition period plus eight years after that.

May has insisted that the ECJ hold no more sway in Britain but the European Parliament has made the court’s involvement one of its priorities in safeguarding the position of some 3 million citizens of other EU states now living in Britain.

Can anyone see Hard Brexiteers not having kittens over this?

OP posts:
ElenaGreco123 · 07/12/2017 14:24

Thanks red Flowers

lonelyplanetmum · 07/12/2017 14:26

Heartfelt Thanks RTB

Just read this.. I thinks it's a very important Times article. We have been saying this would happen to supply chains once we leave but why is it happening now?


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/patients-hit-by-shortage-of-drugs-as-prices-soar-tv2ps2p66

Patients hit by shortage of drugs as prices soar
Mental illness and cancer sufferers forced to wait


Ministers are facing demands to ensure the NHS is not “taken for a ride” over drugs shortages which have cost £180 million in six months.
Labour MPs and charities are among those demanding an investigation into problems which have caused cancer and mental health patients to go without crucial medicines.
At least 100 drugs have been affected by supply problems, forcing health officials to approve temporary price rises of up to 4,000 per cent to boost stocks. The NHS is spending more than £50 million a month overpaying for the medicines but pharmacies are still running out for days at a time and turning patients away.
Ministers are now investigating amid fears that the market is being manipulated to drive up prices. Pharmacists have complained that there have been cases where a drug in severe shortage becomes available immediately when a higher price is granted.
Warwick Smith, director-general of the British Generic Manufacturers Association, said “something very unusual” was going on and suggested that wholesalers were artificially inflating prices.

Mr Smith said that concessionary prices agreed by the government were on average two and a half times larger than manufacturers’ charges. “It’s not in manufacturers’ interest to exaggerate their price increases,” he said. “It doesn’t make them any money, it just makes them less popular. Something is going on somewhere else in the supply chain.”
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said today: “When NHS money is tighter than ever it beggars belief that £50m a month is being used on overpayments to deal with drug shortages.
“Ministers have to explain what they’re doing to protect the best interests of patients and taxpayers. Ministers must hold a serious and open investigation into how drug prices are being set and, if there is evidence of market manipulations, then ministers must make sure that companies are held to account.”
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin, chief executive of the charity Breast Cancer Now said: “The causes of these shortages must now be fully understood and we call on the government and Department of Health to continue to ensure the sufficient supply of essential medicines, working with pharmaceutical companies and pharmacists to address this critical problem.”
Shortages of bicalutamide, a mainstay of prostate cancer treatment, have also recently appeared and Tim Windle of Prostate Cancer UK said: “We are urging suppliers, pharmacists and the government to work together to rectify these problems as an urgent priority. In the meantime pharmacists should be supported by the government to ensure that men can access their treatment.”
Prostate and breast cancer drugs taken by tens of thousands of people are among those affected as well as epilepsy treatments and several common anti-psychotic medicines used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Simon Wigglesworth, head of the charity Epilepsy Action, said that people were being forced to change drugs because of shortages. “The impact of this should not be underestimated . . . [People with epilepsy] may not be able to drive or work, and experience severe anxiety or depression as a result of switching medication,” he said.
Lady Morgan said that shortages of the hormonal therapy anastrozole, taken for years after surgery to stop tumours returning, were incredibly worrying, adding: “Delays in receiving treatments can cause further uncertainty and anxiety at an already difficult time. Crucially, if adherence to hormone therapy drops further, breast cancer recurrence rates could increase, ultimately costing women’s lives.”
Under rules to combat supply problems, a pharmacy industry body can ask the Department of Health to grant a month of higher prices, known as price concessions, for drugs that are difficult to obtain. The cost to the health service of one drug, the anti-psychotic quetiapine, has risen from £1.62 to £65 and the total extra cost to the NHS of the concession price rises has increased from £2.5 million in April to £32.1 million in June and £53.4 million in September. Overall the shortages have cost an extra £177.9 million between April and September, the most recent month for which data is available.
The cost is likely to be rising further as pharmacists report “unprecedented” shortages, with difficulties obtaining 97 drugs last month, up from 27 in April.
Mark Burdon, a member of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, which makes these formal requests, said that high street chemists were “scratching around” for crucial supplies. “The most worrying ones are drugs for mental health. It’s terrifying for patients when they can’t get something they are stable on. Anti-cancer drugs too cause huge anxiety for patients,” he said. “We have to spend a lot of time reassuring people — ‘Yes, we’ll definitely have it, but probably not today or tomorrow. Can you scratch by until Friday?’ . . . It does happen that we have to say to patients, ‘We can’t get this for love nor money’.” He said that pharmacists were having to beg GPs and hospitals for supplies.
Many of the shortages have occurred in drugs made by several companies that have been available for years without any supply problems. At least two manufacturers have been forced by regulators to suspend some production this summer but the rise in shortages appears to have begun at least two months before these problems.
Martin Sawer, executive director of the Healthcare Distribution Association, representing large wholesalers, insisted that they were not manipulating the market but called for more scrutiny of smaller wholesale licence-holders. “Our members do not sit on stock, they make generics available to customers as soon as they get them,” he said.
The Department of Health said: “Our priority is to ensure medicines used by the NHS are certified as safe and effective, even if this costs the NHS more money . . . The generic drugs market is particularly volatile at present due to shortages of supply and other factors but we still have some of the cheapest prices in Europe.”
Case study
Dr Wayne Kampers, 53, a consultant psychiatrist in London, said his patients had suffered depression and suicidal thoughts as a result of medicine shortages (Billy Kenber writes).
“About 20 per cent have either not been able to get the medication that’s been prescribed or they’ve been given a different form of that medication and that has significantly affected their mental health,” he said.
Dr Kampers, who works at the Priory in southwest London as well as in Harley Street, said that one patient had been stable on an antipsychotic drug for many years but recently had to switch because it suddenly became unavailable. “They really struggled,” he said.
He described the problems suffered by another patient who was prescribed an antidepressant. “He went to at least 12 different pharmacies around where he lived and worked and not a single one was able to dispense it and nor could they tell him when it was going to become available. The impact of the shortages has been far reaching.”
NHSHealth
Share
Save

lonelyplanetmum · 07/12/2017 14:28

Sorry it's so long but didn't know if link was behind paywall. It's really serious and so worrying..

EmilyDickinson · 07/12/2017 14:29

I just don't understand Theresa May. She's a remainer by instinct but feels that she should implement Brexit because that was the result of the referendum. Why would she not then try and make the best possible fist of it? Have some kind of plan? Some kind of strategy? Try and build a consensus? Work out what is best for the country? Plan ahead?

I keep thinking that maybe she feels a good result is impossible and I'd agree with that, and that, truthfully her heart's not in it but then why not just resign and let someone else deal with the mess and take the flack.

LurkingHusband · 07/12/2017 14:31

These include limiting British benefits from any future agreement and an insistence London continue to abide by the European human rights convention.

Is "London" being used as shorthand for "the seat of UK parliament, thus implying the UK" in the same way we might say "Paris" meaning "the French government" ?

Or does it mean just London ?

LurkingHusband · 07/12/2017 14:32

Patients hit by shortage of drugs as prices soar

Yup, that's me.

mrsreynolds · 07/12/2017 14:32

Thanks to red and to all of you
My oasis of sanity in a work gone mad

EmilyDickinson · 07/12/2017 14:33

It would be amusing if it was a slip revealing a plan to let London be an independent city state remaining in the EU. Even Sadiq Khan would be surprised.

RedToothBrush · 07/12/2017 14:37

Dear Mr Speaker.

I thought you would like this lovely chart I found on the interwebs.

The Hansard reference you are looking for are:
hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2016-10-20/debates/F14D6E60-5AA3-4E61-BB3D-98A4A68E7672/BusinessRevenue#938

and the evidence for the other is here:
www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/887635ea-6bb5-4b0a-8bf7-3875507a319b
The good bit starts at about 9:33:00

Love from

Red from MN.

Westministenders: Happy Xmas (War is Over) - if only
OP posts:
thecatfromjapan · 07/12/2017 14:45

Thanks Red.

I can't imagine anything but kittens from the Hard Brexiteers over that. Taking Back Control.

lonelyplanetmum Thank you for the C and P. My sympathy to Lurking, who has been sharing his experience for some time now. It is genuinely alarming.

RedToothBrush · 07/12/2017 14:46

This is Lady Hermon wonderful speech from yesterday.

hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2017-12-06/debates/09F6086E-3FC1-41D1-B080-DE74491905A7/EuropeanUnion(Withdrawal)Bill

Here is an extract:

For the benefit of Members—including DUP Members, who have been busy doing other things, as I have said—let me take a moment to read out clause 7(6). Ministers will be given sweeping powers under clause 7 to do what they consider appropriate to prevent, remedy or mitigate deficiencies in retained EU law. The point I must emphasise to the Committee is that the sweeping powers provided in clauses 7 to 10 are replicated or duplicated in schedule 2 for the devolved authorities. The reference to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which I struggled to find, is in clause 7(6). It states:

“regulations made under this section may not…amend or repeal the Northern Ireland Act 1998 (unless the regulations are made by virtue of paragraph 13(b) of Schedule 7 to this Act or are amending or repealing paragraph 38 of Schedule 3 to the Northern Ireland Act 1998 or any provision of that Act which modifies another enactment).”

I commend the legislative draftsmen and women, because I am sure it is technically correct, but what on earth does it mean? The legislation has to be clear to those people who read it who are not lawyers, and the vast majority of Members of this House are not lawyers. The language is not clear.

May I say to the Clerks of the House—the brilliant Clerks, who serve the House long hours into the night and with such enthusiasm—that I am enormously grateful to them for their patience personally with me and for their diligence and great wisdom in drafting new clause 70? The new clause puts in black and white a bold statement of the commitment to the Good Friday agreement and to the principles which I call in shorthand in the new clause “the Belfast principles”. Those are the principles enshrined in the Good Friday agreement.

For Northern Ireland Unionists, the Belfast principles include the constitutional guarantee, through the consent principle, that Northern Ireland remains part of the United Kingdom unless and until there is a border poll and the people of Northern Ireland, and only Northern Ireland, say otherwise. It is not in the gift of No. 10, thank goodness; it is not in the gift of Dublin; it is governed by the people of Northern Ireland in a border poll. The constitutional principle is guaranteed among the Belfast principles in the Good Friday agreement, as is the principle of mutual respect for all communities across Northern Ireland, who were so divided by the troubles—respect and equality, irrespective of how a person votes, their political opinion and views or their religion. Non-discrimination and equal respect for all is guaranteed in the Belfast agreement.​

There are many other principles—I could go on—in that document, which is enormously important for people not just in Northern Ireland, but particularly in Northern Ireland. I stand here as a Unionist and I am proud to defend the Belfast agreement—the Good Friday agreement. I say that with great pride because I grew up, not in in some stately home but on a 50-acre farm west of the River Bann in County Tyrone, very close to what unfortunately became known as the “murder triangle” for the number of people, both Catholic and Protestant, who were murdered by the IRA and subsequently by loyalist paramilitaries as well. Our postman was murdered at the end of our lane. Many of our farming neighbours were attacked on their tractors, or went out to a shed and opened the door, and there was a booby trap that blew off their head or face. My late father made it to 92, but he had to attend innumerable funerals of our neighbours, both Catholic and Protestant.

There is no monopoly on pain and suffering—every single one of the DUP Members in this House, their families and neighbours, suffered as well—but likewise in County Tyrone in 1981, when we had a Conservative Government led by the late Margaret Thatcher, we had the hunger strikes, which unfortunately became the best recruiting agent the IRA did not have in 1981. Ten young men starved themselves to death—highly emotive within the Catholic community, the republican community, the nationalist community. They were the sons of neighbours of ours in County Tyrone. All communities suffered.

Many Members of this House will have no idea who Jack Hermon was, because they are all so young. My dear late husband, who died with Alzheimer’s nine years ago, was the longest serving Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. During the appalling terrorist campaign waged by the IRA and subsequently by the Provisional IRA, which morphed into something called the Real IRA, and by loyalists—do not forget the woe, the suffering, the grief that was caused by loyalist paramilitaries—he described his officers as extraordinary men and extraordinary men doing an extraordinary job, and they did. In Northern Ireland, with a population of 1.8 million, 302 RUC officers were murdered. That is an awful lot of dead police officers.

In the 10 years that Jack was Chief Constable, he had to attend almost 100 funerals, and that undoubtedly affected him, but I tell the House that when the Good Friday agreement was signed and I talked to him about the constitutional consequences of having Sinn Fein in the Executive, Jack listened to me patiently and then lifted one finger and said, “If it saves the life of one police officer, I’m voting for this.” Jack supported publicly the Good Friday agreement, the late Mo Mowlam and her efforts at that time.

OP posts:
HermioneIsMe · 07/12/2017 14:47

Place marking.

Thanks again for the threads RTB. They are invaluable.

HashiAsLarry · 07/12/2017 14:58

Thanks rtb
Dh got me a ticket to the political party later. Will be interesting to see what soubry says. Then to see if she manages any of it.

woman11017 · 07/12/2017 14:58

Beautiful, refreshingly honest speech, that. And fine letter, red that'll do nicely. Smile
London has always felt like a different country, to the rest. Khan's trip to Pakistan and India is the cheery bit of the news atm.

LurkingHusband · 07/12/2017 14:59

London has always felt like a different country, to the rest.

Tell me about it SadSadSadSadSad

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

BiglyBadgers · 07/12/2017 15:39

I just don't understand Theresa May. She's a remainer by instinct but feels that she should implement Brexit because that was the result of the referendum.

I have seen this view that May is a remainer a lot, yet I have never seen any evidence for it. She did a speech during the referendum because she felt she had to and though it would put her on the winning side. On the other hand she has made a career out of undermining and railing against the EU at every opportunity. She has made speech after speech against immigration and free movement. She has openly fought against the ECJ and she is obsessed with getting rid of human rights legislation. She seemed perfectly happy to implement a hard brexit if she could get away with it and follow the wishes of the brexiteers in her party without question.

May is no remainer. At best she can be called opportunistic.

LurkingHusband · 07/12/2017 15:47

I just don't understand Theresa May. She's a remainer by instinct

But a Tory first. Like Cameron.

Motheroffourdragons · 07/12/2017 15:54

Thanks again, Red Flowers.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.