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

Liam Fox and David Davies in cloud cuckoo land whilst Juncker appoints a badass guy mean guy who knows his stuff inside out to the EU's Brexit department.

WE ARE FUCKED.

Someone on Twitter has said re. Davis/Fox meets Barnier.

'This is Federer versus those two blokes you see in the park on Sunday morning'.

Helmet I can't speak for the domestic situation in Russia, I''m not sure what howabout meant exactly and I have zero knowledge outside of what I see in the news (which seems indisputably terrible, indeed)

I guess what I'm getting at is that we need to understand how Russia and Russians see themselves (as informed by their state-run propaganda, too), in the way that the article posted above by Red does. It's not enough to say "Russians have institutionalised cheating", we also need to see that in their (arguably flawed) worldview it's seen as just keeping up with everyone else and them being picked up on unfairly. Their own narrative of events is not often seen in the western media, and I guess that's what I meant by "bias", even though I can see it's not quite the right word.

If we don't give their side of the story, if only to deconstruct it and show how problematic/inaccurate it is, then we're talking at cross purposes and encouraging the sense of victimisation promoted by Putin and his cronies

The issue with refugees is that many in the EU (incl Uk) believe they will contain some people who will commit additional attacks. They don't seem to be committing current attacks.

Most terrorist attacks in Europe have been committed by immigrants who have been living here for years, or who were even born in the countries they attacked.

Those terrorists don't seem affected by whether we allow in refugees or not - no evidence of them plotting together, but equally no goodwill shown to Germany for allowing in those 1.8 million recently.

There is absolutely no public consent for Europe to take in further MENA refugees.
To do so against widespread public opposition to MENA immigration will only cause many voters to reject mainstream politicians, as we have already seen in Brexit and as we may see soon in the US, even in France.

Middle class liberals / left - who can afford to live well away from the resulting social problems - are being increasingly isolated from increasingly angry lower income voters - who see their already difficult lives made much worse.
The Tories and UKIP in the UK are benefitting from this, Labour is suffering (plus for many other feasons)

"telly" = really in my last post.

But the meaning is obvious. We have senior Cabinet members who still think that the Empire rules and the world will be beat a path to our door and agree trade terms quickly to our advantage.

If it weren't such a fantasy cloud cuckoo land, it would be quite funny to observe.

Unfortunately, it's people's livelihoods

RedToothBrush: is this the time to mention again the name that dh came up with for the UK, should Scotland and NI succeed in escaping the madness?

FUKD (Former UK and its Dependency)

Two very very good reads:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/27/african-american-black-gun-rights-second-amendment
Why if Trump is elected president the US really could be facing civil war. By the way, if there are more cop shootings then the perpetrators will always be shot on sight and will never be taken alive because of a point of law; the right to defend under the 2nd Amendment. No one wants that to end up in the court room...

www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/28/why-bad-ideas-refuse-die
Obviously this is about why we are sick of experts at its core.

Yes I think we should talk about FUKD more.

The EU v The UK

David Allen Green ‏@DavidAllenGreen
Darth Vader v the Three Stooges.

BigChoc, what are the realistic alternatives to taking in MENA refugees?

If the (real, not just theoretical) alternative is to help them settle in decent conditions closer to their homes, then sure, I'm all for that. But is this politically realistic? (genuine question)

And if it's politically realistic, why are European countries not going with that option, instead of creating huge domestic political problems for themselves?

Also just read that Le Monde is not publishing pictures of the latest attackers. Good idea (or gesture) as social media = difficult to fight images being seen anyway.

FUKD yep, that's us.

HesterThrale: "I'm particularly interested to hear the views of so many Scottish posters."

The nice thing is that even though we don't necessarily agree, the discussions and interpretations have stayed constructive and thoughtful, without kneejerk generalisations except when we're talking about certain English politicians

SwedishEdith the other objection to the policy is that it doesn't stop the process of hero-worship in the jihadist communities, because they have their own networks and communities - some say it may even encourage their "us vs them" conspiracy mentality

I don't know what the right policy is, although I'd personally rather not see their faces

Swedish, I think it delegitimises but it runs the risk of backfiring (public think the press / government are hiding something) or creating a Barbara Streisand effect.

Worth trying though I guess.

Agree - difficult. No easy right answer.

it's pretty disheartening to watch France slowly fall into IS's trap. The French government is increasingly adopting the language of "war", and talking in terms of "toughness" and "security". Not only is this exactly what IS want (us vs them mentality creating more candidates for martyr), it's also playing into the hands of the extreme right. Because once you start saying that the answer to terrorism is "toughness", well, they will always be able to out-toughen you and tell you to stop being so soft with your silly ideas of tolerance and human rights.

pretty rafl at fUKd

Chalala We must consider what is happening in the Uk / EU, when considering the refugees issue or terrorism:
The far right is making major advances in the UK, France, Germany etc, also the US and may even achieve piwer with Trump.

The way to avoid people turning to the far right is neither to join in paranoia NOR to go lalalal, tell scared folk to stfu and suck up more immigration of the type that worries / angers them most.

Even on Mumsnet, we see on threads that posters are saying that even longterm MENA immigrants can't be trusted. They are already implying what they really want
People on other forums are already much blunter:

There is now a serious danger of forced "repatriation," particularly in the UK after Brexit, when there are likely to be far fewer legal restraints on the UK.
e.g. TM is likely to court popularity and try again to repeal Human Rights legislation, or if stopped again, she'll put it in the next manifesto
UKIP will gain votes, it they aooear to be the only ones with a "solution", however nasty.

After sufficient terrorist attacks, this could happen on the mainland too.

wrt refugees, let's go for what is humane, possible and also least likely to further inflame public opinion:

Sufficient budget to give to relief agancies to settle refugees decently - much cheaper e.g. than all the resources that are now having to be used in Germany, to house and try to educate refugees.

Just to add to all the doom and gloom, Katla, Iceland's most feared volcano, which traditionally erupts after Eyjafjallajökull (which caused all that disruption a few years ago), is rumbling again.

It normally erupts every 50 years - and the last time was in 1918
http://icelandreview.com/news/2016/07/27/will-katla-volcano-erupt

Time for Doomsday scenarios?

NI and Brexit
The Belfast Agreement requires majority consent before making any change in the status of NI.
If Brexit isn't some form of EEA, then presumably customs checkpoints along the border would be demanded, by both the EU and the UK.
Otherwise, there will indeed be free trade.

Does "consent of a majority" require a NI referendum or at least consent by the main political parties there ?

pretty that will be because we have NS, KD, and RD leading the way in reasoned political debate

I am still in rant mode after hearing Hillary proclaiming her right to the Presidency just for being a woman [anger]. I may have to go for a long walk.

My views on Russia are based on a lot more than a few anecdotes with friends (I don't even just mean watching the odd George Galloway programme on Sputnik News). The more general point is exactly as Swedish puts it. I think part of the problem in the ME is the tendency of the West to paint things in black and white. (DD1 is studying WW2 in History at school. One of the teatime discussions we had was on whether Hitler or Stalin was worse).

Early GE ? Probably not

In spite of the huge Tory lead, an early GE - called when the MPs return from their break - is still unlikely imo

1. TM stated that there wouldn’t be one
2. Tories want to wait for the boundary reform in 2018, which will automatically gain them 20+ seats wrt Labour
3. Keeping JC in office for as long as possible makes Labour unelectable longterm, maybe even giving them time to split into two, which under FPTP would render both powerless.

With an early GE, if JC lost badly and then quit, they could face a 2021 GE vs a really impressive and now experienced Labour leader (Jarvis, Starmer ?) who might win, especially if the UK is recently post-Brexit and deep in a recession.

TM will hope to have a successful 2020 GE with Brexit scheduled for shortly afterwards, so before any real pain.
The Tories would probably have a new leader bounce in about 2024 (after she retires) and the worst of the Brexit recession (they hope) should be over by a 2025 GE.

Sufficient budget to give to relief agancies to settle refugees decently - much cheaper e.g. than all the resources that are now having to be used in Germany, to house and try to educate refugees.

Right, this seems entirely reasonable to me. Hence my question - why on earth is this not being done?! Is it because public opinion would protest at money being poured into refugee relief? Surely they're prefer that to the equally expensive option of having them in Europe...

I've seen some truly strange and frightening stuff posted on MN even before the referendum. Some were saying that all of it, from the Balkans war to the migrants crisis, is one giant islamist conspiracy to take over Europe and destroy western values. I don't even know how you start arguing against that.

The one bitter reassurance I have is that the repatriation discourse can't really work in France, since the vast majority of our MENA population is actually French. We actually have to find a way to make this work.

Does "consent of a majority" require a NI referendum or at least consent by the main political parties there ?

The majority referred to includes a majority of the people on the island.

So arguably it could be two referendums.

The Tories have really promised something they can't deliver here.

We could probably do with volcanic eruption to give us some perspective. Might even pull together and realise we've more that unites than divides etc. Clearly, I don't want this, just feeling really despondent.

It's as though mankind is compelled to fuck it up ever 50-70 years or so. As though our collective memory is erased or something. Also, I'm from the 'Threads' and 'Holocaust' generation of TV programmes that everyone* watched and was traumatised by. That doesn't happen any more, can't happen any more. Society's viewing habits are fractured so it's difficult to get a cohesive message of fear or peace out there. There's negatives and positives about that.

*Lots of Leavers were also from that generation as well so my argument/sentiment isn't standing up to my own scrutiny here.