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

[Floisme]

Thanks for keeping this going Red. I've been away but have tried to keep up.

The Pete North 'purging academia' comment reminds me of a documentary I saw a couple of years ago about how teaching neo liberal economics was becoming mainstream in USA universities. And how eventually there might be no-one left capable of making the counter argument. Wish I could remember what it was called.

[TheElementsSong]

Excellent summary OP, and also hugely depressing. We can't even get hold of enough negotiators, FFS.

missmoon Sadly I'm not surprised, having seen very similar "anti-expert" sentiments (unevidenced) expressed here. What does surprise me is that there aren't droves of positively-emotioned (not -thinking, that sort of thing is not favoured these days), acceptably non-expert, Brexiters queuing round the block to volunteer as negotiators. Surely we can find 300 from the 17 millions?

[RedToothBrush]

howabout that policy would require a policy from government. Its not something that Carney could do, even if he wanted to. He did actually state that government needed to act and he was limited in his ability to do a great deal under the circumstance.

Carney is in a position where I think he would also be heavily criticised if he did nothing too, so I think there is an element of unfairness in blaming him. The Bank of England's remit is to prevent inflation, and he has to write a letter explaining why he hasn't managed to keep it within those limits if he fails to do so.

You could argue that he is guilty of a 'do something, anything!' panic mentality but its not just him that makes the decision. He is part of a panel, who all vote, which need a majority to pass an interest rate change.

Frankly I think he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, because the situation requires government to take the lead not him.

[howabout]

Agreed Red. But if you didn't all find him quite so "reassuring" maybe you would all get crosser with the government for leaving him to it.
Slightly more seriously I think he was guilty of allowing himself, probably inadvertently, to be used to bolster GO's credibility. He did appear to throw down the gauntlet to PH yesterday which for me was a positive change of tone.

Just on Canada bbc business news was talking about them leading the way in fiscal stimulus this morning. If the tide is turning Worldwide on this then they may well get all the credit again rather than being at risk of reflating to the benefit of everyone but themselves. According to the Japanese it was the Germans dragging their heels at the last G7.

www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/05/24/national/politics-diplomacy/japan-canada-agree-need-fiscal-stimulus-boost-economy/#.V6SONFUrLnA

www.macleans.ca/economy/economicanalysis/how-canada-became-the-worlds-economic-rorschach-test/

[howabout]

Fliosme the FT regularly covers this issue and there is even a pressure group

www.rethinkeconomics.org/

[Floisme]

Thanks how. I remember now (with a bit of help from Google!) The film was 'Inside Job'. It deals with the whole financial crisis so only partly about academia but that's the bit that stayed with me.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(2010_film)

[thecatfromjapan]

.

[Kaija]

I neglected to thank you earlier, RedToothBrush, for another excellent summary and new thread.

I can't quite get a handle on what Pete North is saying. On the one hand he suggests that the experts on the remain side were all lying for their own ends (and, scarily, that they should be purged), and on the other that they were absolutely right about the consequences they warned of.

Can anyone make sense of it?

[TheBathroomSink]

Kaija - he's not very coherent in his arguments, but I think he's saying we are not thinking big enough. It seems from reading that blog post and the one before it, that he is somewhat ideologically in tune with Michael Gove (although he would probably hate that), in that he seems to be advocating dismantling pretty much everything about the state and the political system we have, and starting again.

I think his point about the experts is, they didn't win, so now they and the rest of the establishment are making certain that all the bad things which were predicted do come true, as punishment for not listening to them.

I do agree with his opinion of Arron Banks :
"Arron Banks is presently funding it with a view to making it an even angrier nativist party of the hard right. That will fail. They are fishing for policy ideas and all they will get are the usual daft suggestions plucked out of a tombola. Anything from uniforms for train drivers to free corsets for the under fives.
...
Arron Banks thinks he knows it all and can't be told anything. I can think of no movement that deserves to fail more. "

But I would, because that's largely my opinion of Banks and his sheningans anyway!

[TheBathroomSink]

Following on from The Sun's blue passport campaign:
Jim Waterson ‏@jimwaterson 5m5 minutes ago
This is the best petition I've seen in ages and if you don't sign it now you hate Britain. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/163824

"Petition
Remove all French words from the cover of new British passports.

The vote to leave the EU means people voted to Take Back Control. Control of their borders, their culture and their language. Whether 'Dieu et mon droit' and 'Honi qui mal y pense' have existed as mottos in England for ages is irrelevant. French is an EU language and has no place on a UK passport."

Seriously.

[prettybird]

And to add insult to injury (his ) he can't even get the motto right: it's "Honi soit qui mal y pense"

[Kaija]

Thanks, BathroomSink. I would have been a little more convinced if he had given some examples of the lies the remain experts were supposedly telling.

Yes Arron Banks is a very nasty piece of work.

That petition is very funny

[TheBathroomSink]

pretty don't mess his head up with facts. It'll be blue and have unicorns on it and everyone will move out of his way at passport control and there will be no queues. Ever.
Just as long as we get rid of those nasty French words, honest. Rainbows all around. Must be true, because blue passports are magic. And reasons.

[prettybird]

I came across one of my old blue passports a couple of weeks ago #justsaying

[Peregrina]

Er, hasn't the passport got a unicorn on it already?

Why not go the whole hog and get rid of that nasty machine readable chip? Ah but, that wasn't put there at the EU's request, was it, but at the American's request, so that makes it a 'good thing'.

[RedToothBrush]

Ben Wright Verified account @BenWright
^Pre-Brexit: People have had enough of experts. Project Fear won't work
Post-Brexit: People are listening to experts. PF has hurt the economy^

Ben Wright ‏@BenWright
If I knew that Brexit meant we all had to link arms, sing "Kumbaya" and think happy thoughts I would have been even more opposed to it.

Ben Wright - Group Business Editor of the Telegraph (Daily, Sunday, .co.uk). Business, finance, economics.

Obviously not everyone at the Telegraph is impressed at that article.

city.wsj.com/stories/f2970058-edd6-4070-8371-779010aa99fc.html
The pound hasn't completely tanked yet. We have plenty of way to go.

Did you know that every time you close and open a blue passport £10 notes fall out?

Its a bit of a shame they are worth nothing now.

www.theguardian.com/business/2016/aug/05/seven-ways-government-could-lift-the-economys-post-brexit-vote-blues?CMP=twt_gu
7 ways that the government could try and save the economy.

uk.businessinsider.com/millionaire-ukip-donor-arron-banks-belize-olympics-2016-8

British Arron Banks, may be the flag bearer for Belize at the Olympics it is rumoured. Andrew Wigmore of Leave.Eu and Bank's business partner, is representing Belize in the shooting. He is ranked 274 out of 274.

I shit you not.

[TheBathroomSink]

I was just reading that article Red and listening to the news that Fathers4Justice are staging a protest on the roof of Corbyn's house. Everything is surreal.

[prettybird]

HesterThrale - re the petition requesting a 2nd Referendum, I suspect that one if the reasons that the percentage signing the petition in Scotland is precisely because we've already voted clearly what we want. I for one haven't bothered signing it.

On the other hand, I'd support a 2nd Indyref but only when I knew we'd win it

[TheElementsSong]

Re: the absolute Brexit priority of designing blue passports:

"...So the Conservative MP and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Flags and Heraldry Committee Andrew Rosindell is among those who feel that altering the design should be May’s number one priority: “It’s a matter of identity. Having the pink European passports has been a humiliation.”

And if you think that’s a weirdly cretinous thing to say — they’re demonstrably not pink, they’re maroon, just like the passports of France, Peru, Japan, Madagascar and a whole range of EU and non-EU countries — you clearly misunderstand post-fact politics. These are the people who now expect to be heard."

www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/richard-godwin-brexiteers-have-lost-the-plot-with-blue-passports-a3310866.html

[howabout]

I think the future of UK currency rates and ultimately interest rates may be more impacted by the US than the domestic market.

Love the Guardian list of 7 things to do to save the economy. Doesn't take very much attention to see the glaring mess of contradictions, which very neatly illustrates the heart of the debate.

[Qwebec]

Frightening times, I had not thaught democracy (for lack of a better word)
was so fragile. Who besides fachists and extremists attacks the integrity of universities and experts as if they were a single entity. This is dangerous.
Have the Nazis and the Cultural Revolution taught us nothing? Freedom of thaught and it's nurturing is the base of a healthy society. All this division and othering is just food for war and totalitarism.

These threads however gives me hope. 12 threads about politics with no bunfighting. Maybe out there people can stop screaming madness, sit down and find a sound way out of this mess.

[RedToothBrush]

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/jeremy-clarkson-apologises-for-brexit-rubbishes-boris-johnson-as-foreign-secretary_uk_57a4c8c7e4b04ca9b5d2da68?
Well this article is proof that the standard of journalism is going down. Jeremy Clarkson has tweeted about how he would make a better Foreign Security that Johnson.

There is NOT ONE reference to May, Hammond and Clarkson. I find this a dreadful oversight of the details of the story!

www.politico.com/story/2016/08/clintons-third-party-headache-226700
I think this could really be a problem for Clinton, especially as Trump throws all the 'establishment' cards at her.

Channel 4 news has just said that Greater Manchester Police are investigating Steven Woolfe over him standing for the PCC in 2012. That Extraordinary General Meeting for UKIP might turn into a bigger farce yet!

[Peregrina]

Channel 4 news has just said that Greater Manchester Police are investigating Steven Woolfe over him standing for the PCC in 2012.

I do hope they prosecute him.

[TheBathroomSink]

"That Extraordinary General Meeting for UKIP might turn into a bigger farce yet!"

It is fair to say that if there's one thing Ukip excel at, it is turning the simplest of things into a farce. They truly are world class at that.

[TheBathroomSink]

Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick 5m5 minutes ago
Sources say story in Ukip that Woolfe confessed to drink driving conviction before stood for PCC in Gter Mcr in 2012 but told not to worry

Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick 4m4 minutes ago
Nigel Farage tells me he knew nothing in 2012 about Woolfe drink driving conviction & would have stopped him standing for PCC if had known

This is going to get very nasty, even by Ukip standards.