Westministenders Continues. The one where are being grateful for having a Boris rather than a Trump and UKIP show Labour how it’s done.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT CONTINUES - THREAD TWELVE

The calm of the eye of the storm is upon us. The signs are there that more trouble is ahead. What now for Brexit, the blank cheque for our future?

May’s honeymoon can only last the Summer, until she has to do some proper graft. Her Cabinet have all gone on holiday and to swat up on their new specialised subject, and by god have they got some homework to do.

Well, all of them apart from Liam Fox, who has bugger all to do for some time.

Johnson needs to… well we all know what Boris needs to do. Bend over and take it like a good boy.

Davies needs to learn the entire structure and workings of the EU and its variations of trade agreements and relationships with other nations. Juncker has the FUKD in his little black book of people who have crossed him (yes, he actually has one of these) and has put Brit Hating Barnier in charge of the EU Brexit team. Davies must somehow hold his own against this experienced EU hardnut. In French. Oh and find a permanent office.

What do the others need to learn? Hammond - how to perform a bloody miracle. Patel - it is illegal to use foreign aid as a leverage for trade deals. Leadsom – er everything? Rudd – how to do bigger assault on liberty and human rights than her mentor. Fallon – how we will afford to defend ourselves with pitch forks, especially if we can’t use Trident for some reason and it becomes necessary. Our enemy; Russia? North Korea? Turkey? Isis? Na. Trump if he wins.

Brexit is now officially in the hands Whitehall’s unbelievers. Those overstretched officials who are already saying there is a gap in their capacity to deliver what Parliament wants without additional the burden of Brexit. These discredited experts are left wondering if their challenge is, in reality, Mission Impossible, and this is made worse by the pressure that just about every senior Brexiteer seems to say is ‘easy’ despite all the mounting evidence to the contrary. Which is cold comfort to everyone who voted – Remain or Leave alike.

We still don’t even know what Brexit is. It is still something which has no coherent ideology and no clear set of prescriptions for what ailes us as a society. It is a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposes. Whatever the problem, Brexit can fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, Brexit can vanquish it, and it is unnecessary for Brexiteers to explain how.

May’s plan? Some say that she is the Dear Leader, some say she is an evil genius with Larry the Cat on her lap waiting for the Brexiteer Boys to fuck it up so we can Remain, some say she is blessed by the Ghost of Thatcher but we know her as The PM. –Sorry I’ve been itching to make the May/Hammond Top Gear gag for several weeks— The truth is, we just don't know yet.

Plus anything Brexit related about the Labour and UKIP leadership and the rest of the world thrown in to boot.

This is the quest for the answers that everyone wants and trying to keep an eye on those politicians and accountability (both here and abroad in the era of post-fact politics in the trail of Brexit). There maybe no single ‘truth’ but there sure as hell is a lot of bullshit to wade through. Get your wellies out, and plough on through with us.

No experience necessary. Sense of humour required.

-------------------------

Brexit Fall Out Timetable
Labour Hustings Nottinghamshire: Wednesday 17th August
Labour Hustings Birmingham: Thursday 18th August.
Labour Hustings Glasgow: Thursday 25th August.
Labour Hustings London: Thursday 1st September
UKIP Leadership Result: 15th September
Labour Leadership Result: Saturday 24th September
The Department for Exiting the European Union first question sessions in Parliament: Thursday 20th October
High Court hearing on a50: due 'no earlier than the third week in October'
US Presidential Election: 8th November
French Presidential Election 1st Round: 23 April 2017
French Presidential Election 2nd Round: 7th May 2017
German Federal Election: Between 27 August and 22 October 2017

Last thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2690632-Westminstenders-Continues-Boris-is-having-a-bad-week-Corbyn-resists-Its-gonna-be-a-long-summer?pg=1

Its back to the 19th century. We can have hard Brexit and get our empire back and Scotland and Wales will carry out more highland clearances and everybody left will be so grateful to be alive they'll put up with anything. Or not.

The more it goes on, the most contradictry the noises are coming from government.

Which only serves to make you realise just how FUKD we are and just how little clue they have about what to do now an the more desperate the situation seems to become.

Do you think they will admit they are struggling to find something workable which won't destroy the country or are they really that arrogant?

I still want a magic solution to appear from somewhere on this. I want Brexit to be proved as a possibility now, given were we are. I want to be wrong. Its ironic as Brexiteers seem to think that Remainers want to be 'proved correct'. I think its quite the opposite to be honest.

Its still not happening is it?

It's arguable that the strength of the financial services sector and the way that it had dominated and unbalanced the UK economy has not not actually been good for the UK (as opposed to the South East) - especially in the absence of any sort of coherent regional development policy.

However, is the UK population ready to accept the consequences of the hard landing and long short term pain that losing it would involve?

Not that the top level of financial sector employees will feel the pain - they will just move. It's the lower levels who will lose their jobs and all the public sector expenditure that relies on the tax take from the financial services sector that will bear the brunt

Do you think they will admit they are struggling to find something workable which won't destroy the country or are they really that arrogant?

I hope the first. I fear the second. Even May, who a lot of people seem to view as a 'safe pair of hands', 'one-nation Tory', a 'pragmatist' and committed to 'public service'; I suspect her of arrogance and overweening ambition. I also suspect she may be more right-wing than she is given credit/criticised for and would quite like a more deregulated free-market UK.

Or, to be slightly less ungenerous, that she genuinely in some way thinks 'the people have spoken' and, in the name of public service, Brexit must happen. In some form.

More UKIP nonsense

And another one - good for the bloke who threw leaflets produced by Leave campaigners on the ground

On the Olympics - and, yes, liked Callum Skinner's Eff Off to UKIP - it was after 1996 that the UK started to invest. So, predominantly, under Labour. Do you think there would have been as much commitment under the tories?

According to someone on last night's Olympics programme, it was John Major starting the National Lottery which provided funding for some of these sports. The John Major of the Maastricht Treaty. Say no more!

Loved the quote in the UKIP leadership Viagra story, "Never, in the field of British politics, has such a fuss been made, about something so small.”

He did start the Lottery, you're right. But I wonder if the commitment would have remained under the tories? Just an idle thought.

I know you've all been waiting for it...

I bring you. MICHEAL GOVE'S BEARD

To steal a joke I saw on Twitter earlier about that photo:

"Want to feel old? This is what Joe 90 looks like today"

Sport and the Lottery - this is an extract from a Parliamentary research paper dated December 2009.

"UK Sport (formerly the Sports Council of Great Britain) is the UK Government’s non-departmental agency responsible for directing elite sport. While the body has existed as UK Sport since it was established by Royal Charter in 1996, it only started to receive Lottery support in 1999 when the Labour Government decided to redirect an equal proportion of funding from each of the UK’s national sports bodies. Thus, from July 1999 to March 2006 UK Sport received 1.53% of Lottery money. From April 2006, UK Sport received an additional 2.27% following the decision to shift responsibility for the performance pathway – “the period of an athlete’s career that takes them from the time when their talent is identified through to the podium”36 – away from Sport England. UK Sport is specifically designated responsibility for maximising performance at major sporting events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games. The body is also responsible for bidding for and staging such events over the next 20 years; recent examples include the World Swimming Championships (25m) 2008, World Rowing Championships 2006 and the 2003 World Indoor Athletics Championships. Accordingly, a significant proportion of Lottery funds are directed at supporting sports and particular athletes with the potential to win medals at major international championships. The March 2009 round of grants issued to the governing bodies of individual sports saw major recipients such as athletics, cycling, rowing and swimming receive more than £10m each through the Pathway Performance scheme. As of 17 November 2009, UK Sport has distributed 11,686 grants with a combined value of £448 million."

A rundown of how UK Sport funding works is on the UK Sport website here www.uksport.gov.uk/our-work/investing-in-sport/how-uk-sport-funding-works

As far as I can tell, UK Sport gets a third of its money from the Exchequer, and got an increase in Government funding in autumn 2015.

Whether its government funding will survive a reduction in tax receipts due to a recession (caused by Brexit and/or other factors) - who can tell?

I rather think it would - Atlanta was not a good Olympics for us, and it showed up the chronic underfunding. I know you can't say for sure, because Major could have been replaced by someone like Redwood, who would probably happily shut down all sports funding, but I think it would have been a risk once the Lottery had been established for that purpose.

Leave.EU have been using images of all the medal winners and are now whinging that they are being sued by the BOA - must be desperation on the BOA's part, right? Couldn't be that they see no upside to being associated with a dodgy-as-fuck millionaire?

Ukip's Welsh leader has quit and will now be an independent AM, and they've slipped to 6% in the polls with the latest seat forecast leaving them with no MP:
UK General Election Seat Forecast

CON: 391 (+60)
LAB: 176 (-56)
SNP: 55 (-1)
PC: 4 (+1)
LD: 4 (-4)
GRN: 2 (+1)
UKIP: 0 (-1)
NI: 18 (-)

Sadly while you'd hope this would speed up the inevitable death of the party, I suspect it just speeds up the return of Farage and his porn-tache.

oops, x-posted with patty - I was answering Swedish but it looks like I was wrong anyway, I thought the Lottery had funded sport from the beginning, but it was a local kids' team I was involved in getting Lottery funding for, so that may have been a community grant rather than a sports one, I can't remember now!

No being sued by the BOA is to do with them using photographs of the athletes from Olympic footage.

There was a blanket ban on this, for ALL use of such images - which includes even funny memes. It was a rather draconian Olympic thing over rights and ownership. Only official broadcast and media partners were allowed to use such images.

I read about it before the games: it was supposed to apply to all twitter and social media useage.

It actually has nothing to do with political allegiances.

Leave.eu are rather predictably making PR out of it. They probably saw the same thing as me and though this would make great publicity and would not have done it otherwise.

They have form for it and I doubt anyone would expect differently. Its funny, I would how they react to intellectual property rights and patents and these being flouted in places like China...

And there you have it....

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/leave-eu-team-gb-british-olympic-association-rio-2016_uk_57b47a87e4b0edf5a37438c6?
Leave.eu make false claim about legal action.

Wanted to say thanks for keeping these threads going. They are of a continual interest to this lurker, living and working in another EU country who is still completely gobsmacked by what is going on back in the UK.

Gosh, the Leave campaign being less than accurate, there's a turn-up for the books....

But yes, I'm sure they'd be very understanding if someone were to use their branding without permission. I'm sure Banks has never trademarked or copyrighted anything belonging to his companies, or his campaigns, because why the hell shouldn't everyone use whatever they want

oh

www.swissinfo.ch/eng/trip-to-london_meeting-to-address-british-swiss-ties-post-brexit/42380704

Here are a couple of opinion pieces from Conservative home.
The first talks about trade opportunities. It some how manages to say nothing whilst trying to look like its saying lots!
www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/08/richard-graham-brexit-poses-a-trade-conundrum-but-it-can-be-solved.html
Perhaps the most interesting comment in the whole piece is the reference to the fact that the Conservative Party conference is in October.
That might actually be interesting!

www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/08/chris-whitehouse-the-dangerous-cocktail-of-crazy-lobbying-rules-and-more-lobbying-activity-as-we-prepare-to-leave-the-eu.html
The second talks about how lobbying will become much more important in the UK post Brexit, and how this will be managed.

I find a few points in this alarming. It in part saying that, unless you are able to lobby the government its your fault if the government doesn't consider your interests.

One of the problems that drove the Brexit vote was the fact that there were many unheard voices in our society and people whose interests are not represented and they felt disenfranchised. The very people who are least able to lobby about what your interests are.

Its also, in part, why Trump is so popular in the US amongst certain parts of the population.

In terms of business, it was smaller businesses which were less happy with the EU - but they might find it harder, not easier, if they are dealing with Europe because of this. And that's without whatever trade barriers there may be introduced.

It also suggests that Britain will have to work harder to further our business interests in Europe than we have previously.

None of this, I find particularly reassuring or good.

The first article talks about trading with willing old Commonwealth nations, and doesn't say which goods and services they would be willing the trading agreements to cover. I am sorely tempted to say that it's just the white Commonwealth he wishes to trade with. What else does he mean?

Then he lauds the placing of an order for some new Airbuses - a UK - French collaboration. Personally I don't know how this would be affected by Brexit - it never seems to get a mention.

And what does this choice paragraph of waffle actually mean:

At the heart of all this has to be a strong vision of a Britain in the world, with strong links everywhere. Based in Europe and leading its innovation, services and enterprise. Whoops no, you've just told them you want nothing to do with them.
At the heart of the Commonwealth and leading more intra-Commonwealth trade and rising prosperity. As I said before, the white commonwealth, not the impoverished sub-Saharan black Commonwealth. Asia’s western partner of choice, with London as its international base. Why should it be a partner of choice?
Latin America’s window for capital and preferred European HQ. An obvious candidate here would be Madrid with its historic ties to Latin America.
Second only to the US in defence, intelligence and aerospace. Wholly dependent on the US for defence, but yes, we do hope we will make lots of nice Arms sales to whichever ghastly regime is willing to pay. And of course a major role in the UN Security Council and NATO. The position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council is something that I could see us losing within the next 20 years.

Basically, a lot of wishful thinking.

Indeed. I find its lack of substance the really telling bit.

It really does hark back to the old British Empire. You get the impression that some of the Brexiteers still think that the world should owe us a living and will be falling over themselves to have the honour of doing business with London us

Problem is: there are only three "countries" left in this "Empire" - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Only one of which arguably still wants to feed service the "HQ"

Whither now, FUKD?

I've heard a number if brexiteers waxing vocally about the opportunities we have to trade with the commonwealth. I'm not sure we'll be able to increase our market share much with the commonwealth in terms of complex legal agreements and financial derivatives.

Also it rather ignores the point that both NZ and Australia feel that we totally fucked them over when we joined the Eu. Both had very significant trading arrangements with us which were decimated leading to a lost 15 years for NZ. It's do unreported here, I only learned about it in NZ over Christmas and hadn't realised how bitter many people are about it. It's abominably arrogant to assume that they'll give up the arrangements they now have in place that they built up after we shafted them last time to take us back.

I am just reading the Brutal Truth about the end of the British Empire in Kenya. If this is typical then I can't see all that many former Colonies rushing to embrace trade with us, or at best, only on their own terms.

"We don't like the EU with all those Frogs and Krauts; we want the time back when we lorded it over the people with black and brown skins" just isn't going to cut it in today's world.

We already have trade with Kenya. For a start, it's where a lot of our green beans come from!

Figures and a rundown of trade opportunities and challenges from the UK government here www.gov.uk/government/publications/exporting-to-kenya/exporting-to-kenya#kenya-export-overview
The latter do not, I see, include the risks from Al Shabaab etc, though the UK government does highlight the danger in its advice to travellers www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/kenya/terrorism

The Kenyan government already offers trade incentives kenyahighcom.org.uk/trade-incentives/

Is trade on a much bigger scale likely? (We could well need a very much bigger scale, depending on how trade with the EU is affected.)

Andrew Neil ‏@afneil · 1h1 hour ago

Brexit positioning: Italian PM Renzi backs Chancellor Merkel’s plan to give Britain more time to quit EU in return for bigger budget deficit

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/08/theresa-may-proving-be-selective-interventionist
Lobbying has its first success.