Westminstenders Continues. Boris is having a bad week. Corbyn resists. Its gonna be a long summer.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD ELEVEN

The dust is beginning to settle and the storm has abated. At least for the moment. The summer is about to start, and so there may be a break in proceeding.

May has had quite a first week both here and abroad.

The ground has not stopped shaking from the political ripples abroad. Made PM on Weds, Nice on Thursday and a failed coup in Turkey on Friday. The political landscape has changed once again.

At home she first cleared out the Govians and called for loyalty. She channelled the ghost of Maggie at the despatch box. She started the process of trying to make friends with Scots, Germans and the French. She is apparently now Merkel's bestie. Sturgeon is already ousted from that position after just days.

Boris, meanwhile has been rinsed by everyone he speaks to because of what he's said in the past. He's also given up his chickfeed job. Oh the hardship.

Now he looking like he's starting to regret deciding to play with the grown up. He's been trying - and it would seem, largely failing - at sucking up to the Americans. There's still no apology, but he has admitted that he has a list that is so long that he's lost track of what he needs to apologise for. I bet he's wishing for his playmates, Dave and George to come back.

Otherwise life carries on as normal, well this alternate new version of normal, with parliament breaking for the summer today. Don't worry the Martian landing is scheduled for a week Tuesday.

UKIP's polling seems to have dropped back post referendum, and things have gone rather quiet. Wolfe, Etheridge, Duffy and Arnott are all standing (Who? When did that happen? Yeah quite. Without Farage they disappeared). They plan to reform and make an assault on seats in the Labour heartlands of the provisional NW, Midlands and NE at the next general election. Hustings in August, new leader announced Sept 15th. Looks of thinly and not so thinly veiled racism to look forward to there then. The Daily Mail best make sure it upgrades its servers in time.

The Labour contest grinds on like a war of attrition. Stalking horse Angela fell at the first fence as Owen Smith (that's the MP not the journalist everyone including the media!) wins the dream unity candidate ticket for an apparent hiding to nothing against the steely stubbornness of Corbyn. Everyone with a pulse is starting to loose the will to live with it all.

The Lib Dems, have a Spokesman for Remain. Old Cleggy's back! Otherwise they seem to have been trying to do a deluded impression of the opposition party. Though with 8 MPs they aren't doing much better or worse than Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet atm.

The Green are having a leadership battle too. It must be very civilised - I've heard not a word about it. Lucas tried to get a vote about PR though the Commons. It failed. Again.

There also is a cross party idea to set up a new iniative of a progressive movement to champion Europe, which seems to be gaining some traction. It may also double as a support group for anyone who thinks the world has gone a bit nuts lately at this rate.

The SNP are pissed off, as they vow differently on everything and once again they feel that Trident has been imposed on them. Sturgeon had a good meeting with May though, and apparently the Union must remain and Scotland holds the key to the future. Though we don't know the key to which door that is - Braveheart or Brave New World.

The Republic of Ireland is making noises about a referendum about Irish Unity, but beyond that nothing about NI has really been on the radar. May is supposed to go visiting soon.

And the Welsh? Baaaaa who cares about the welsh? They made the mistake of voting Leave as well as the English and now have been forgotten, consigned to political irrelevance forever.

Article 50 has been pushed back officially until the New Year, with a first legal hearing on how to activate it due no sooner than the 3rd week in October. Leaving the EU legally will now be no earlier than 2019.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2685902-Westminstenders-Contines-Boris-outmaneovered-everyone-Now-War-and-Peace?pg=1 Previous Thread TEN

although I live in one of the "expensive" half villas in Pollokshields on the Southside wink (I love where I live smile)
My dream is to retire to the Southside of Glasgow. So very civilised.

I've just helped a good friend move in along the street, having initially "found" the house (upper conversion) for a MNer who was looking at houses in the South Side.

Since your a local here is the original article from The Herald mother

www.heraldscotland.com/news/14638357.Glasgow_suburbs_offer_most_affordable_housing_for_first_time_buyers/

Cannot recommend highly enough relocating back home from the big smoke. I live within spitting distance of pretty. They are building 500 affordable family homes 10 minutes walk from me. If I drive from me to her I pass at least 3 other significant new housing developments.

I was in central London last week. An acceptable gaffe for me and DH in our old neighbourhood would be £800k (a lot more than the quoted London average) and we would have no cupboard space to put the 3 DC in.

But the median for all is 18,564. Even FT males only reach 30,004. So, mean earnings of 37,716 is misleading (I think - no vested interest, just curious about the stats).

According to www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc126/

Should really get the topic back onto the Westminsterenders/Brexit shenanigans - although you could argue that it's still on On-Topic as there may be an influx of immigrants to Scotland if NS manages the negotiation of her life to avoid Scotland leaving the EU

I have a house in Herts and a farm in the Scottish Borders. Where to live?

Lol Prettybird. Seriously though, I wonder how thrilled the Scots would be about an influx of English immigrants?

Swedish earlier on either at the start of this thread or in the last Red posted a good article on income inequality looking at the difference between mean and median wages and highlighting that even with rising average wages over the last couple of years they are still in fact falling for the bottom 20% and indeed hh incomes are also falling despite longer working hours for this group. Brings us back neatly to Brexit and the impact of austerity for the poor in the face of rising GDP.

In the context of average house prices, in the Glasgow area at least I think mean is the more valid comparison. Just as there are more lower paid than higher paid workers leading to a median below the average there are also more cheap semis and flats than there are des res family villas.

However you have given me a new tool to play with and median earnings look a lot more skewed below the average in London than elsewhere. I also suspect the housing stock is less well matched to the income distribution. In other words a median comparison may give an even more unfavourable comparison with the suburbs of Glasgow.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11578214/Inequality-is-ruining-Britain-so-why-arent-we-talking-about-it-more.html

"when did the rich become so utterly horrible?". "trickle down economics is a joke but trickle up economics is very real".

This article, written just before the GE, is a depressing look at the lack of policy choice offered by either Labour or the Conservatives. It correctly predicts that in the end neither will win.

I wonder how thrilled the Scots would be about an influx of English immigrants?

Would this depend on how they behaved? If they came in willing to fit in, or if instead they came in with a superior sense of entitlement. (You would hope the latter sort wouldn't find Scotland attractive.)

David Allen Green ‏@DavidAllenGreen
One month on, UK government has no greater clue how to do Brexit than on day of referendum.

No plan; no idea what should be in plan.

David Allen Green ‏@DavidAllenGreen
Challenge to Leavers/Brexiteers - can any concrete, substantial step towards Brexit be identified, one month after the vote?

Fair comment? Right? Wrong?

It does feel like we are going nowhere but further up shit creek though.

Scotland needs more immigrants, whether they be from EU or England

As an immigrant family myself, we've always felt welcome (albeit I arrived when I was 3 ). Indeed, my parents emigrated again in my teens (70s oil crisis) and we emigrated back to Scotland after 2 years because thus was where they felt at home (I on the other hand sulked for a year when we went because I didn't want to go and then sulked even better, after the practice for a year when we came back because I didn't want to come back in my defence, it was between the ages of 13 and 15 )

pretty I am much the same re the sulking - cannot cope with the rain and the midgies vs cannot cope without the rain and the midgies

Swedish going back to your median income data, look at the orange ring around Glasgow indicating high incomes relative to the UK median. Interestingly the higher relative levels are more marked and more widespread throughout the central belt when you look at Female and PT workers.

In my case as a stroppy teenager it was because I didn't want to leave my friends/my new friends. The weather in New Zealand was much better!

NS' speech Sturgeon sets out key Scottish interests that 'must be protected'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36878081 as reported by the BBC

FWIW, my prediction is that NS will continue prenegotiations and develop relationships with the EU officials and countries and discussions with TM for as long as possible.

IfWhen A50 is invoked (early 2017?), then the prid pro quo for Scotland not blocking/being difficult about the various pieces of Exit legislation (refusing to grant Sewel motions allowing Westminster to do it for devolved areas) that Scotland would need to pass, NS will negotiate "approval" for Indyref2.

Indyref2 will be held late 2019 (or before Brexit if that's sooner). NS will hope that by that time, the support for independence will have reached a consistent 60%.

One of the reasons for that is while the (rest of the) UK is negotiating a Leave package (Swiss model, with restrictions on Free movement, losing the financial passport, but at least we don't then have to pay into the EU but get free movement of out products but not our services), Scotland will be negotiating its "holding pen": a period during which, provided Scotland votes Yes, it can be neither in nor out of the EU after the UK leaves and Scotland sorts out its "divorce" (last time they predicted it would take 18 months). During that time - and maybe another provisional year while it confirms its finances, it'll be deemed to be virtually in the EU (or as a minimum, EFTA).

The biggest difficulty NS will have is balancing the SNP supporters who are baying for Indyref2 tomorrow and trying to be seen as reasonable while negotiating in good faith with the UK and the EU and wanting to delay the referendum until the Yes vote is consistently 60%. Plus there is a small but significant element of the SNP and Independence supporters that are against EU membership.

There's a majority of Independence supporting MSPs in Holyrood, plus I know some Labour MSPs are reconsidering their Unionist approach. I also know of major Labour Party activists (like Mike Dailly of the Govan Law Centre) who've totally changed their tune on Independence.

If TM pulls back on austerity, puts money into education, supports the NHS, re-thinks Trident, accepts free movement in return for access to the free market, then she might be able to save the UK.

Very interesting perspective Pretty and I agree with a lot of what you say from my No / Brexit bubble. I guess the real decision will be made by the No / Remain majority. I am not sure how many of them would prioritise the EU over the UK 2 years hence. It might even boil down to the touchy question of attitudes towards Ireland.

My own view is that the Smith commission did not give a stable devolution settlement and EVEL has exacerbated this. I also think that the Scottish economy is sufficiently different to and devolved from the rest of the UK to warrant a different relationship with the EU. This means that as a No / Brexit voter I would be happy with a Federal relationship with the UK (Independence lite) and a Norway style deal with the EU (Brexit lite). I think full EU membership for a country the size of Scotland confers far less influence than it does for the UK as a whole. We would be very much 1 among 27.

Did anyone else see Owen Smith on Newsnight last night? I am not a fan so I probably suffer from a lot of anti bias but I didn't think he came across well.

He didn't cope well with the questions about the PLP revolt weakening.

He sounded sensible on public services but not passionate. I was not convinced that he really believed what he was saying. I was even less convinced he could sell the message to the revolting PLP.

On Trident he managed to sound like Trump. He linked retaining nuclear weapons in the UK to the "traditional small c conservatism of Labour's working class heartlands" and their sense of "Nationalism". Imo he would have sounded deeply patronising to any UKIP voter and an absolute turn off to the other 85% of the voting public.

On reflection I find I have no idea what his position on Brexit is.

On a lighter note this is how the cartoonist for The National sees the whole Labour Leadership battle

www.thenational.scot/cartoon/a-new-low.81

Maybe the Guardian would be doing better commercially if it developed a sense of humour?

I've been grieving since 23 June, but now I'm trying to hope for some smidgens of silver lining. For my own sanity, trying to be positive. Whatever the political Brexit outcome...

In five years time, maybe the international super-rich will be buying less property in London, and ordinary young people will find it more affordable.
Maybe London will have realised that not everyone thinks the same as them, and will give more consideration to the views of Scotland and the rest of England.
Maybe more young people, having been awakened politically, will be active in fighting against inequality.
Maybe there'll be a new political movement, based on consensus about some universally-agreed values.
Maybe there'll be a new kinder politics.
Maybe politicians will be more truthful and make fewer false promises.
Perhaps we'll begin to value what we took for granted: Europe, the NHS, immigrants who work hard.

Perhaps things were gradually getting worse, and this huge shock will wake us up. (Like the frog in boiling water analogy.)

Maybe...

Maybe Hesterthrale ......

and unicorns exist too

But I suppose we all need to try to think positively. We have to imagine it to be able to aspire to it. Then we know what it is we are trying to work towards.

Michael Moore uses a Brexit comparison to explain why he's convinced Trump will win. Moore is far from perfect but he's an acute observer of US politics, and knows the political mood of the rust belt states very, very well. Scary stuff.

michaelmoore.com/trumpwillwin/

Yes I agree Prettybird, we need to have a positive goal in mind, and engage rather than give up. Thanks for not pouring cold water on my hopes!

Very interesting interview on the Radio 4 Today Prog this morning with the German ambassador to London, following the Germany attacks. The discussion there, he said, is not about migrants or Islam, but about mental health. (You could argue that many attacks worldwide are due to mental health problems.)
What could happen if European countries put even part of their policing/ surveillance investment into mental health services instead?

Chalala thanks for the Michael Moore link, very interesting. I too think that Donald Trump is going to win, and have thought so since the day after the Brexit vote (and for very similar reasons).

The "Bernie or bust" approach is exactly what would happen to Labour if Corbyn was beaten at the leadership election

It's really interesting how US and UK politics mirror each other right now. Reading US commentaries the same topics come up - the cult of personality around a leftwing leader, a populist post-truth campaign, disaffected working-class people tempted by a scorched-earth protest vote