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

howabout So looking at a map and seeing there are 4bn people is the basis for our political and economic strategy to achieve "prosperity"? Intrinsic to that statement is the assumption that they will fall over themselves to do business with us, which they will providing it is in their interests, and at the moment that is a fairly one way street. David Cameron came away from his first trade trip to China with a big fat zero in terms of deals, and egg on his face, when he tried to score a few cheap daily fail points by claiming an official tried to make him remove his poppy. Even the daily fail commenters thought that might have been tactless in the first place but then the fifty centers pointed out that actually they wished they had a similar symbol of remembrance for the billions of Chinese who died fighting for their country in the last century. The £40bn of deals done during and prior to the state visit here, of which Hinkley which I agree was probably a mistake but not one we can go back on without damaging our relationship with China, was £6bn, did not exactly signal a bright new dawn for British prosperity as a result www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/24/britains-deals-with-china-billions-what-do-they-mean?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Even in those sectors where we have achieved exponential growth, meeting the needs of Chinese consumers for conspicuous symbols of status through luxury brands like Jaguar, Aston Martin and Mulberry, the Chinese are already focused on nurturing their own manufacturers and designers so that China can develop it's own luxury brands through craftsmanship and good design, with Chinese characteristics. It has already been done and exported to us www.shanghaitang.com

We are really going to have to up our game if we are going to come anywhere near developing enough profitable, for us, trade with China to compensate if we turn our back on Europe.

China wanted us to remain in the EU, because they see the value of geopolitical and economic blocks, in a global economy. They hailed Brexit as proof that democracy was the enemy of good government. So in a way we already damaged the reputation of the political values that a united Europe stood for.......

I completely agree that the west needs to realign it's thinking on the east. That is the bit of the editor of Marxism Today's talk that is sound. You cannot analyse China, and Asia in a wider sense, from a western perspective which only really crystallised in the Enlightenment when it is a country rooted in a culture and ideology that is thousands of years old.

I have also read a few articles making this point about the shift in global prosperity, maybe we need to rethink our sense of entitlement to "prosperity", certainly it is something we are going to have to work harder for www.huffingtonpost.com/branko-milanovic/economic-power-west-asia_b_7849724.html

Another interesting article in the Guardian - sorry if the link has already been posted:

www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/22/king-canutes-lessons-for-brexit

Anatole Kaletsky is arguing that the EU should reform to return some elements of its policy to national governments (including emergency breaks on free movement and the right to benefits) and offer the UK the alternative of staying in the reformed EU or trading on WTO terms with no Norway or Swiss or any other benefit.

Funny thing, different people's perceptions. I have the opposite impression to Motheroffourdragons and think that the SNP is more genuinely left wing than Labour (certainly than the PLP who knows what Labour the party actually stands for any more )

I was brought up Labour (my dad's doctor colleagues used to be horrified at his heretic thinking! ). For me, (good) state education and a (proper) NHS (mum teacher; dad doctor was definitely a factor) and support for the vulnerable form the foundation of my beliefs.

I certainly don't think of the SNP as a right wing party - whereas I do now consider Labour to be just another "centre" party (to appease Middle England) which in turn has sent the Conservative party further right . I recognise that Corbyn has been trying to change that (arguably ineffectively) but I think it's too late for the party in Scotland. SNP has taken over the left wing that Labour abandoned in the Blair/Brown/Miliband (and even Corbyn although I'm not sure what Labour has actually done in Parliament since he took over) years.

And of course, those Leavers hung up on 'sovereignty' won't be best pleased, one assumes, on realising that we will still have to accept EU-wide decisions without having been involved in them.

One odd* thing is that having voted Leave and got back control of our sovereignty there is the assumption that other countries will choose not to exercise their own sovereignties by seeking a deal that works best for them.

• Of course, none of this stuff is really odd in the current your-own-personal-unicorn climate.

One odd thing is that having voted Leave and got back control of our sovereignty there is the assumption that other countries will choose not to exercise their own sovereignties by seeking a deal that works best for them.*

I know!

Or, to put it another way (and someone may have said this already here; apologies if so) – this appalling, overbearing behemoth that has oppressed us for forty-odd years with its unreasonable demands and roughshod riding over our wishes let's forget about our EU voting record and vetos eh will, as soon as we want to start demanding exit terms of it, suddenly roll over, purr and let us have what we want.

Which IS it, Leavers?

That Tim Loughton interview is completely hilarious. I don't know if it was supposed to be, given that it was on stage with a comedian but it was almost as funny as actually watching the campaign in real time!

“Everybody spilled out on the pavement, 250 MPs and supporters wearing t-shirts, including my daughters, very embarrassing, and me. And a whole load of cameras, BBC, Channel 4, ITV, German TV, the lot were there. And then Penny [Mordaunt] and Andrea came out, got in a Mercedes, and buggered off.
“So which point, what do you do. I thought, ‘well we probably better march’. We had people like Bill Cash. Bill Cash, well in to his 70s, probably never ever been on march like that before. And some other sane people.”

Well if we were playing Brexit Bingo, I'd say it doesn't really matter which it was, because the key thing is that it was a "supranational body" ..... - and that's all that counts. It's a matter of principle. Duh.

Sorry - that was a reply to Sapphire -

Figment, yes, more cake-and-eat-it thinking, isn't it?

ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/
This is a list of all the countries and trade groups the EU has a trade agreement with currently.

This is a list also, of all the trade deals we will loose with Brexit and have to renegotiate with a 'hard brexit'.

This is a list of reasons why we are totally insane to even consider the idea due to the way in which a50 works and why no one will do so whilst divorce proceeding are underway.

But still. Brexit means Brexit, and apparently this is what we voted FOR. Who else read the small print on their ballot paper. I missed it.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/08/22/the-brexit-surrender-labour-waves-the-white-flag
Apparently Labour are for Hard Brexit too, if only through their actions, according to opinion piece by politics.co.uk editor.

Oh and here is a handy map to go with that EU list of trade agreements.

Want to spot the places to improve?

Or is it all really down to how domestic government policies on trade for previous governments have been done?

Let me think about this....

FUCKERS.

You know how just as May was going for her leadership election bid, she said she would abandon scrapping the Human Rights Act.

Well look what the Justice Minister has been saying today:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/22/new-british-bill-of-rights-will-not-be-scrapped-insists-liz-trus/

I also note that the Human Rights Act is enshrined into NI Law and relates in part to the peace process. So once again, implications there since the name 'BRITISH' implies it will be imposed on Scotland and NI by Westminster.

I'm just wondering how well that's going to go down in terms of Brexit plans too.

Yeah, I was looking at that, Red.

Northern Ireland was always a worry but it's looking like an increasingly big worry.

Well Gove - who was always opposed to the GFA was a lead leaver.

English imperialism also seems to be part of this harking back to our glorious past.

Does 'taking back control' apply to all Westminster power and destroying the devolved parts of this country?

Genuine question?

Does 'taking back control' apply to all Westminster power and destroying the devolved parts of this country?

Genuine question?

Maybe Red, which would be very worrying. There was a story this morning that TM was thinking of scrapping Mayors for various regions, although it was swiftly denied.

I think we're going to be looking at several years of political kite-flying.

Also, pity any of the statistical agencies that, to some degree, are under government control. They are going to face mischief on an unprecedented scale.

David Allen Green @DavidAllenGreen
The minister picks up a blank sheet paper.

"The wrong one, minister. That's the British Bill of Rights. Here, this is the Brexit plan".

Intro to Marketing ‏@IntrotoMKT
@DavidAllenGreen The first invisible ink was urine. Somehow that seems relevant.

Well that HAS just brightened my day