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.

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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

Interesting points from the David Allen Green article in the Standard, linked to earlier by Red:
-A hard Brexit will not happen due to legal and trade complications.
-A post-Brexit UK may not be about 'taking back control' but giving it away, in return for a trade deal.
-Membership of the EU may prove an unmoveable object.

What a mess.

I have just had a reply from my MP. Although she voted Remain herself, she is continuing to repeat the mantra, Brexit means Brexit and we intend to make a success of it. She also said that she wouldn't support a second referendum, which she knows I will be disappointed about. Since I didn't mention a second referendum, I am not quite sure why she thinks this. But she supports Brexit means Brexit because that is democracy. I am sorely tempted to ask her whether if 52 out of a hundred people voted to jump of a cliff, whether she would expect the other 48 to restrain them, or whether she would let them get on with it.

I did ask her whether she would vote in accordance with what she felt was the best for the country, or toe the Tory party line. She didn't bother to answer that one.

When I have had chance to digest her reply, a stinging response will go her way. At the moment, I am too annoyed.

At least yours replied, Peregrina. Mine has swanned off somewhere, probably guest lecturing for large pots of cash, and hasn't been seen or heard from for ages, and hasn't bothered to reply to my email to him either.

Tbf, I didn't expect any different, he's never shown any real interest in 'his' constituency. I think being out of London brings him out in a rash.

Peregrina - I think you should make that point. Be as blunt as that! Don't let her weasel out of responsibility.

@neeratanden's tweet illustrates the parallels with Brexit yet once again - just writ on a larger (and more dangerous for the world ) stage.

Anyone watching the Brexit programme on BBC2?

no, I was two-screening the Olympics until a few minutes ago!

Yes, I watched the Brexit programme.
Sad that I am, I started making notes.

It was stated that in February 2016 when Cameron went to negotiate with Brussels, they wouldn't budge on the immigration issue. My question to Leavers now, is if they wouldn't accommodate us then, why do you think that they are more likely to accommodate us now, when we have told them that we want to leave the club?

Going back to the programme:
Laura Kuensberg mentioned how 'within 2 -3 days' the Leave campaign went back on their promises. My recollection is that it was within 24 hours.

She then had people talking about how Labour party canvassers said that their voters on the doorsteps were saying that they were voting to Leave. No mention of the fact that Labour voters overall delivered a Remain result. No discussion with Tory Leave voters who are the ones who overall voted for the Leave Campaign.

Then the usual Mandelson stuff knocking Corbyn, but excusing Cameron. (I don't vote Labour BTW, but I have no time for Mandelson.)

So IMO not enough or indeed anything about why Cameron so completely misjudged his own voters.

Talked about the '75 Referendum as a vote to join the Common Market, which it wasn't, we were already in.

She finally did say that it was a sort of coup. I couldn't help but note that coups nearly always end with bloodshed.

I didn't see the Brexit: the Battle for Britain programme but I have seen complaints on Twitter that they managed to go the whole programme without once mentioning Scotland and its Remain vote

They did show Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory Leader, who came across impressively IMO, but I don't think LK mentioned her by name. No mention of N Ireland either. If I were to sum up the programme it would be 'Why didn't Labour voters deliver it for Cameron?'

Apparently not just Scotland was ignored

@GrayInGlasgow: 1 hour BBC documentary on #EUref tonight. No coverage at all from events in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Whose national broadcaster?

I only saw the last 15 minutes but was extremely irritated that they seemed to be going along quite unquestioningly with the "left behind" narrative as explanation of the result. And it looked like there was a lot more of the same false balance that characterised the BBC's neutered coverage up to the vote.

Undoubtedly, there was a 'left behind' feeling, which came across with those people that they interviewed in Sunderland. But where were the voters in people like Andrea Leasdom's constituency? Did they not want to show just how many Tory voters are bigotted Little Englanders?

It was one element, for sure, but only one.

It wasn't a very enlightening programme in the end. No mention of Scotland, felt like a spliced up collection of best bits and asides to camera. There certainly wasn't any analysis worth the name. Maybe we should send the producers links to these threads.

I did wonder who you would complain to about the programme. About the only useful fact I found out was that Ken Clarke wasn't told about Cameron calling the Referendum. I think he said he read about it, or heard it on the news. (I wasn't taking notes at that point.)

There really needs to be a programme about how UKIP has infiltrated the Tory party. Instead of all this stuff about Momentum infiltrating Labour.

I think the BBC made a programme to prove the point that the remain campaigners expected most of the labour voters to vote remain but they didn't. That's why Scotland wasn't mentioned.

According to this link yougov.co.uk/news/2016/06/27/how-britain-voted/
65% of Labour voters voted Remain, 35% Leave. 39% of Conservative voters voted for Remain, and 61% Leave.
I don't know about you Corcory, but I would think roughly 2/3 to 1/3 would be putting that as most, or at least the majority of Labour voters did vote Remain.

The 'left behind' in Sunderland mostly seemed to have a gripe with Westminster. I don't think the people they interviewed for the programme mentioned Brussels once. And of course Immigration - even though as the point was made, there isn't all that much in the North East.

Even the Telegraph didn't think the programme was much good.

But then the Telegraph, as house paper of right-wing Conservatism, wants to get rid of the BBC altogether. So perhaps a less than enthusiastic review is unsurprising.

Cynical old me thinks the lack of mention in the programme of Eurosceptic attitudes in the Tory party and incompetence on the part of senior Tory remainers is down to those attitudes and the fact that we now have an increasingly rightist government deciding the BBC's future. Self-censorship.

Do you think that survey's accurate, Peregrina? Out of 232 Labour constituencies, 150 voted Leave. I know not all votes in those constituencies are Labour but it's very hard to believe the 63% self-declared Remain figure when you contrast the 64% verifiable Leave vote .

AllThePrettySeahorses, This is surely a function of first past the post - there will be many areas that voted leave where labour won in 2015 but with fewer votes that con/ukip combined

interesting to see Remainers talking about the possibility of a Hard Brexit when not so long ago Bearbehind started a thread entitled 'Brexit Lite here we come'! No matter what anyone said she was still adamant that TM had indicated this in her speak after her Italian visit.

corcory, you appear to have an insatiable desire to prove me wrong and I'm more than happy for you to so, only it needs to be based on facts.

I started that thread based on comments TM made, for the purposes of this conversation, those comments are straight from the horses mouth.

Please provides links to anything written or said by someone who's actually in a position to make it happen, that indicates a hard Brexit is likely.

All I've seen is a lot of hot air like the Telegraph article which essentially says we want to leave the Single Market but retain full passporting access but it is based on quotes from people who just want that to be the case- it isn't going to happen.

Really interesting threads, I have been lurking for a while and enjoying the civilised tone of the debate.

I am wondering whether the mood has changed in the outside world as well. Are there really hordes of angry Leavers ready to march on Westminsters if they do not get a hard Brexit NOW? Or are they just a small minority/ a figment of the Daily Express' imagination?

I haven't read about any polls of post-Brexit views, but you ladies are much better informed than me...