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

US Republicans want to keep or even add monitoring and restrictions to Muslims, African Americans, abortion rights activists, environmentalists, anyone to the left of the GOP.

Their wish for "freedom" from the state is to reduce the few remaining restraints on themsleves and people like them: white, gun-toting, rightwing, social conservatives

That's weird about Matt Damon, he's definitely the gun control progressive type

John Oliver had a good segment on gun control recently, showing that the only reason legislation is not passing in spite of clear popular support is the stranglehold the NRA has over Congress. It's not even a question of money or numbers - they're just relentless and extremely good at mobilising their base.

Didn't the BNP have a certain amount of success in council elections in places like Stoke on Trent? However, once elected, they never bothered to attend much and so lost their seats.

John Oliver on gun control
m.youtube.com/watch?v=EtTHzegMWA0

local councillors don't receive a salary, just expenses, which are capped at about 20k.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-20967913

They also have to do a lot of work - if they want to do the job properly and get reelected - so most of the kipperati aren't interested in nitty grittty local politics that's unpaid.
There are only a few exceptions where kippers roll up their sleeves and avtually reoresent their voters.

However, basic £79k MEP salary is higher than for Westminster MPs and the very generous expense account attracts more chancers.
So, UKIP have loads of candidates vying to stand as MEPs - UKIP are well-known for trousering all possible expenses there, as the BNP were.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/02/two-meps-took-home-over-1million-each-in-salary-and-expenses-pay/

Farage funded his Brexit tour via MEP exoenses:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/02/two-meps-took-home-over-1million-each-in-salary-and-expenses-pay/

Farage and UKIP have always been notorious for not attending meetings of EU Parliamentary committees where they are supposed to represent UK interests.

oops
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3008601/Ukip-Euro-MP-expenses-fiddle-axed-High-profile-election-candidate-chief-staff-kicked-bringing-party-disrepute.html
www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/24/mps-expenses-ukip-nigel-farage
www.mirror.co.uk/news/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-euro-3012708

A US conservative pundit referred to "well-fed" slaves:
www.nytimes.com/2016/07/28/business/media/bill-oreilly-says-slaves-who-helped-build-white-house-were-well-fed.html

Yes, the BNP lost its grip on Stoke after a very short time but that had an awful lot to do with relentless infighting as much as them just being crap. One of the BNP councillors is still there, just under a different party.

There's been several ward boundary changes and different election cycles tried out in Stoke in the last 10 years or so, so there have been a lot of local elections. The BNP still stands people here in council elections, they just come in 5th or 6th place now, instead of 1st or second.

Something like that. I suspect it was a bit more to it too.

Have you ever seen a BNP leaflet? DH's parents got one around that time. It was shocking, but not for the reasons you might think.

The level of literacy was so bad, you wonder how they would actually have managed to help run the council. As much as people need to be represented from all groups, there has to be a minimum ability to cope with the demands of what's involved if elected. That's not being snobby or elitist about it, it the reality of the job. Plus if you know that English is not your strong point having the foresight to get someone else to double check it, is probably a good idea. (Especially when the leaflet you are producing is criticising the level of English taught in schools!!!!)

It didn't exactly inspire confidence, and I did wonder whether their inability to show up to meetings was somehow connected to this.

Its a problem that parties need to grapple with to be inclusive though. I would say that the demands of being an MP are probably past a lot of people - even the majority of UKIP MEPs are comparatively well educated. Being the 'ordinary man on the street', really isn't sufficient alone to be perfectly blunt about it. There has to be a level of managerial experience, if not formal education behind it unfortunately. If its lacking, it does the people you are supposed to be representing a massive disservice just as much as someone who is 'out of touch' might do.

Its all a bit of a catch 22 tbh.

At one time of course Red a lot of the 'ordinary man on the street' people would have cut their teeth as trade union reps and gained quite a lot of experience that way. Theresa May was making some noises about worker representation on company boards. If this ever happens, that too could be good experience.

Speaking of Farage apparently he is in talks for Help I'm A Celeb. There's a stumbling block, a newspaper was reporting this morning. Apparently he's 'too greedy'.

A US conservative pundit referred to "well-fed" slaves

Oh well that's all right then. It's fine to be bought and sold if you are fed well.

The set up of local councils are also not easy for a lot of people.

For example there is transport to meetings.
Then there's timing of meetings if you work.
Then the whole set up is not family friendly and tends to exclude single parents as a result.

I know that an MP has been given a caution over bringing her children into Westminster this week, but to a degree I think this isn't the root of the problem. She at least gets a salary. Its the tip of an enormous iceberg.

It starts further down the chain at local level where communities don't support those from backgrounds which make it more difficult to participate. This is why, on the whole, you tend to get a male dominated political system which is heavily weighted towards the retired pensioner.

Local politics needs to actively recognise these challenges. Employers need to be supportive of this.

If it can't be done at local level then it certainly is going to create an alienation and distance from central government.

Yes, red we still get them occasionally. I have to say, though, they have not cornered the market on badly written pamphlets. The last one produced by the party currently in control here was not a sparkling advertisement that these people should be in charge of our schools.

This is long and I'll have to come back to it to read it all but thought it fitted well here

www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n15/eliot-weinberger/they-could-have-picked

Jeb!

"...his (Cruz's) freshman roommate has apologised for not smothering him with a pillow..."

Love that article Swedish

May even be considering going down the George W route for all future judgements. Who could possibly disagree?

Swedish, I was just about to post that!!!

We thought we had it bad when considering the option of Gove, May and Leadsom. They are positively communist compared to that list.

Hey just think if Trump does loose and does decide not to stand in 4 years time there is a great calibre of fruitloops queuing up to teach the world just how good education and international journalism is.

I bloody love Europe. After reading that, I don't give a fuck if we are the UK and part of the United States of Europe, as long as we don't turn into the monster of madness that is the USA.

Surely in four years the Republican party will have found some new crackpots for everyone to laugh at?

I'm not so sure, Red, I reckon if you gave Leadsom enough airtime and rope, you'd get statements not a million miles away from a lot of those. Gove, probably not so much because he doesn't tend to fall back on the religious statements, but I can see him going for the sweeping closures of departments across government if he got the chance.

Only sensible decision the High Court could have made. Kind of sorry they didn't decide otherwise just because I am going to miss out on the amusement factor of seeing the Revolters decide on the best strategy to get JC on the ballot with nominations

Also missing out on any potential appeal under the ECHR which could have added a whole other level of farce

The Scottish Named Person proposals have just been rejected by the Supreme Court under the ECHR. The Court raised concerns about the lack of precision in the drafting on information sharing rather than rejecting them out of hand, as some will doubtless suggest. This looks like a good example of the ECHR doing its job well.

Nothing to do with Ben Bradshaw being out of touch with / failing to presuade his constituency and CLP then?

Surely in four years the Republican party will have found some new crackpots for everyone to laugh at?

Ironically the result of the republican post-mortem after the 2012 loss to Obama was that they needed to expand beyond their nutty religious fanbase, and start courting minorities and women. That went well...

One of the problems of the Republican Party is that the party membership was hijacked by extremists who egg each other on but don't represent the wider electorate. My DH has been registered republican (I know, I know) all his adult life, but as a non-religious moderate he doesn't recognise himself in the party at all anymore, and he's voted democratic in the last 3 presidential elections.

It isn't his constituency, he's Exeter. It's Sarah Wollaston's.

One of the problems of the Republican Party is that the party membership was hijacked by extremists who egg each other on but don't represent the wider electorate

sounds familiar...