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

That might be the single best thing to come out of this whole mess, TheBathroomSink!!

God, I hope so, although it does mean I am now back to banking on a lottery win.

So those Blue Passport they are campaigning for:

Saw this on twitter and didn't know the source, so went ahunting a lo and behold.
www.total-croatia-news.com/politics/595-croatia-will-not-change-the-colour-of-its-passports
Croatia do indeed have Blue EU passports.

Dept. for Int. Trade @tradegovuk
Liam Fox meeting @ScotchWhiskySWA. Over £3.8bn of #whisky exported last year - UK’s single biggest net #export

Comes complete with nice photo

Then someone said this:

Peter Ungphakorn ‏@CoppetainPU
I wonder if they discussed geographical indications protection for Scotch post-#Brexit - UK won't be in EU GI deals

With this in mind my proposal is to get everyone shitted, change the colour of our passports and declare Brexit done.

Everyone's happy.

So those Blue Passport they are campaigning for:

I like it!

I don't think the EU is too worried about Russia. France, Germany and the Netherlands are far less concerned than the UK was, and the Polish conservatives have much in common with Russia when it comes to social policy. By contrast, they do not see much to recommend in the Obama administration's general social drift.

It suits the interests of the US State Department to paint Russia in a horrible light, and the UK in best 'special relationship' mode trotted along obediently through the coup in Ukraine and the sanctions and freezing of assets after the takeover of Crimea, but I think UK-Russia relations will undergo a re-evaluation now, and the rest of the EU will be able to navigate its own course based on naked self interest now that the US doesn't have a back door into Brussels via London any more.

I think Alex Morton is being carried along on a lot of hot air, and is dead wrong that a decentralised Europe is just around the corner, with the UK at its vanguard.

His article is a conceit that includes all the old memes - fortress Britain battling against the EU forces arrayed against her and hoping she will fail badly. The old ego problem of the UK is expressed again - unable to fit in with continental European powers and get along nicely because the Imperial past left unresolved pretensions, and really only able to conceive of a Europe led by the UK on the UK's terms. Ultimately Morton looks ahead to victory over the Hun and the effete Frogs and the assorted sausage eaters. This conclusion arises from a realisation that economically speaking the UK is scuppered.

So funny to see someone whose currency is at 1985 levels gloating about the Euro being a failure.

The final paragraph, where he says that the UK will win by basically jumping as high as any European state that has the UK over a barrel demands (i.e. every single European state) would be funny if this wasn't an actual publication of a major political party currently in government and tasked with finding a way of negotiating exit from the EU in a way that won't completely bankrupt the country.

No tax reductions for corporations - Sweden in the corner pocket.
Send money (what money?) to Greece to show up those nasty Germans.
Allow the eastern European immigrants in - but only to London (how?) - if they want to work. Which they do now so what's the problem...

Some of the comments under the article are far more intelligent, both from Brexiters and Remainers as far as I can identify them.

Got my Labour leadership ballot papers this morning. Don't think I want to vote for either candidate.

Almost tempted to vote for Owen Smith as a protest vote but we all know what happened last time lots of people voted just as a protest.

One of the comments to Morton's article says:

People are not going to like it if the referendum result is not completely expected and they will be furious if it is fudged.

I don't see any way that it can't be fudged. May can't accommodate the wishes of Scotland, N Ireland and Gibraltar with Brexit and that is before you start to consider 'soft' vs 'hard' brexit options.

People might argue that a significant number in Scotland and N Ireland voted Leave, but that cannot be said of Gibraltar; a 96% vote in favour is as unanimous as anyone is likely to get outside a dictatorship. Since this isn't part of the UK. Gibraltar may be the area where some sort of fudge is possible, because it's not technically part of either the UK or the EU. And let's face it, the vast majority of people in the UK neither know nor care about it, so this wouldn't upset the man who doesn't want the fudge. They would get upset if Spain seriously reasserted its claim - that would get the jingoists in the Tory party frothing at the mouth.

Then you have to confront the immigration issue, which so far May has failed to do.

(But I think I am repeating myself).

Interesting view on Gibraltar. A sizeable percentage of the Remain vote in Scotland was a vote to protect Scotland's place in the UK as well as in Europe - this is why there is in fact very little movement in the polls on independence despite the Brexit result. I assume not many in Gibraltar would vote to be in Europe but out of the UK so I am not sure how much can really be read into the result there.

I agree with much of what math says about the Morton article.

Interesting to see the US / Nato position re Syria / Russia being pivoted via Turkish involvement.

Gibraltar isn't in the UK, which is why I think some sort of fudge might be possible.

Interesting debate below:

Tom Forth @thomasforth
A part of the international students debate you might miss in London; "Headingley reclaimed as students migrate"
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/lifestyle/homes/headingley-reclaimed-as-students-migrate-1-8037310
In most UK cities students concentrate close to Uni. People in those areas try and stop this. They also oppose student accommodation.
Lefty anti-studenter: "More student flats! What about affordable homes?"
Righty anti-studenter: "We need to limit HMOs in this community!"
Reducing international student numbers will cost the UK money. It will also take back control for a lot of communities. May will be popular.

Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 2h2 hours ago

@thomasforth How big a constituency is "people affected by student housing" for the Tories?

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 2h2 hours ago

@tomashirstecon most of the outer suburbs of most of the UK's cities.

Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 1h1 hour ago

@thomasforth Weird that it hasn't featured as an issue much. So it's not just foreign students, it's total student no. they want to reduce?

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 1h1 hour ago

@tomashirstecon it doesn't feature as a national issue because it doesn't really affect London. It's a huge issue in local politics.

Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 1h1 hour ago

@thomasforth Pretty surprised preferred solution isn't more purpose-built student accom (per @resi_analyst), but maybe shouldn't be anymore.

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 1h1 hour ago

@tomashirstecon @resi_analyst Leeds has build lots of dedicated student accommodation. As with all new building it is controversial.

Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 1h1 hour ago

@thomasforth @resi_analyst Yep, but I imagine Tories care more about the suburbs than the centres electorally so still a win no?

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 1h1 hour ago

@tomashirstecon @resi_analyst people in the suburbs may have left the city but they "remember when it was good" and oppose change.

Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 1h1 hour ago

@thomasforth @resi_analyst Marvelling at how quickly "Britain open for business" & "take back control" hve crashed headfirst into each other

Lap Leong ‏@LapGongLeong · 1h1 hour ago  Hong Kong

@tomashirstecon @thomasforth Why not a Subnational adjustable quota system? London/Manchester get to have all the migrants they want

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 1h1 hour ago

@LapGongLeong @tomashirstecon because people in Essex and Lincolnshire are concerned about London & Leeds. They consider them their cities.

Lap Leong ‏@LapGongLeong · 1h1 hour ago  Hong Kong

@thomasforth @tomashirstecon Well, why not limit the migrants to the local authority or borough? I haven't thought this through.

Lib Dem Lords Retweeted
Lindsay Northover ‏@LPNorthover
International #students numbers coming to UK universities have declined by 28k. Huge loss to us & our #universities. We should welcome them.

I can see the collision course between the educated younger generation and uneducated older generation quite directly in all this.

Spain will block any deal over Gibraltar, other than getting back / shared sovereignty, Garcia Marshall has said as much, and why not? If they dobt get it back they never will.
It wouldn't be the first time the borders are virtually closed (exhaustive checks to access Spain) and they can even close the air space (as happened in may).

*Garcia Margallo

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/britain-fails-to-understand-the-nature-of-globalisation-at-its-peril/
Fail to understand globalisation at your peril

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/56827-2/
The psychology of scarity

Re the student housing issue - it's the same with Crookes in Sheffield. DS lived there as a student just over 10 years ago and it was all HMOs. DF lived there post war, when it was a pleasant, not too expensive, residential area.

Re: Headingly / Hyde Park area of Leeds.

I lived there as a student. So did my parents. It was not great then, in the early 1970s. Their student house was demolished in the late 1970s before I was born as it was deemed it was not up to modern standards.

My grandfather lived there. So did my great grandparents and much of my family.

I have photos from the 1910s. It looked very nice then. It should, it was brand new when my great great grandparents moved in with their one year old daughter (my great grandmother)

Is that REALLY what we are saying we'd like to go back to?

Rose tinted specs I feel.

I couldn't see it linked anywhere else but does anyone believe Ian Duncan Smith when he says that Article 50 will be triggered early next year or do you suspect he is trying to set the agenda? Imo, it would be crazy to push forward with it until the legal challenges/judicial reviews have ruled at the very least and until some sort of agreement had been thrashed out with Scotland/NI.

Is that REALLY what we are saying we'd like to go back to?

For some people, it isn't the houses as such, it is the community they formed. Where I live, we've had rows and rows of terraces knocked down for regeneration, meaning compulsory purchases and people having to move out of houses they'd lived in for many many years. A lot of the houses were not up to modern standards, and it would have cost a fortune to make them so, but it has destroyed whole neighbourhoods. People had to move somewhere else whilst houses were demolished and new ones built, and because this takes time, they don't always want to move again. Plus, new houses cost more than old, unmodernised terraces.

It wasn't helped here by the regeneration agency going bust and leaving significant areas as wasteground, many of which are still not being redeveloped 10 years or so later, and a dominant local land-banker who frequently floats pie-in-the-sky ideas which never amount to anything.

Student housing can be a thorny issue here - the council need the money the university brings in, but as the university builds blocks of flats as fast as it can, it is moving out into areas which have not traditionally housed students, and this is not usually popular with the residents. It also makes you wonder what will happen to the huge area of run down terraces and old villas converted to HMOs, close to the uni, which have traditionally housed the students not in halls.

I think it was just IDS expanding on his Sun column from the weekend - he says he's spoken to May, Davis, Johnson and Fox and they all agree, but I'll believe it when I see it. IDS is just poking them along in the hopes of getting what he wants, which is a hard Brexit, so he doesn't see the point of negotiating, because he wants us just to walk away.

Tell me where these magical communities still exist?
They don't pretty much anywhere in the UK anymore.

Well they do. Online mostly.

Three generations of Leeds students in this family.... And the young professionals the estate agent refers to are there because it is a leafy student area close to the city centre. I am not at all underestimating the extent to which the mushrooming of student populations have swamped areas of our cities and I can see that building student accommodation like the big red and white high rise pyramid monstrosity in Leeds is no more a good thing but there are other areas near the centre of cities like Leeds, Nottingham and Manchester that are no go areas for both students and the middle classes, the Council flats adjacent to LRI come to mind, I doubt many young doctors and nurses are buying there when they can commute from Headingly. However obviously estate agents make more money out of young professionals.

Arguably cities like York have been swamped by students to a greater extent but the remain vote there seems to have been powered in part by valuing the universities.

Areas like Headingly in Leeds and Manningham in Bradford were very nice indeed because the cities were booming on the back of the textile and other industries. Lots of people got rich and built big houses, and there was money to spare for civic projects like parks which made the areas even nicer. At the same time without greater protection of workers rights and provision of health care these were also centres of child labour and the highest rates of infant mortality in the country. At one point in Bowling in Bradford the average age of death was 5 years old....... Rose tinted specs indeed

red - the first house I owned was in a street of old back to back terraces, about half owned by older people who had lived there all their lives, the rest fairly well split between first-time buyers and those who'd been there about 10 years or so. I knew everyone at our end of the street, and quite a few from the other end. My best friend lived two streets away and my then-SIL lived 6 houses away. It was a nice, friendly street in a decent working-class area, with a few corner shops, couple of churches, couple of schools and a lot of pubs, about 10 minutes walk from the city centre. By the time we sold up 5 years later, 75% of the houses were BTLs and it was a good weekend if the police were only called once. Only one of my old neighbours still lives there now (17 years later).

On the other hand, we have several huge council and ex-council estates here, and whilst there are some areas of them which are terrible, there are also parts of those same estates where whole families live within a couple of streets of each other, and they all know their neighbours and genuinely do have a community. The things these areas have in common, in my experience, is people who are at home during the day, front gardens, and wide roads. On a lot of new build estates, it is dangerous for kids to play out because the roads are so narrow, and there are so many cars parked (because planning means they have to restrict the parking spaces), and houses are expensive, so everyone works long hours. You have to be very lucky now to be able to afford to live in the same area as your family, if that's what you want, but that's how a lot of areas built up their communities - by people being there a long time and getting to know each other.

That was a lot longer than I intended. Sorry!

"A part of the international students debate you might miss in London; "Headingley reclaimed as students migrate"
www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/lifestyle/homes/headingley-reclaimed-as-students-migrate-1-8037310
In most UK cities students concentrate close to Uni. People in those areas try and stop this. They also oppose student accommodation.
Lefty anti-studenter: "More student flats! What about affordable homes?"
Righty anti-studenter: "We need to limit HMOs in this community!"
Reducing international student numbers will cost the UK money. It will also take back control for a lot of communities. May will be popular."

What rubbish. The linked article doesn't even mention international students. Students start moving to a different area of the city so that en existing student are becomes less studenty. That's all the article says.

It's a complete extrapolation to say that this demonstrates a desire to limit international students and that May will be popular for doing so.

"Tomas Hirst ‏@tomashirstecon · 2h2 hours ago
@thomasforth How big a constituency is "people affected by student housing" for the Tories?

Tom Forth ‏@thomasforth · 2h2 hours ago
@tomashirstecon most of the outer suburbs of most of the UK's cities."

Again, utter rubbish. Most university cities have one or two areas where the students congregate, often poorer inner areas that weren't that desirable to begin with. Certainly not "most of the outer suburbs of most of the UK's cities".