Westministenders. Boris and co learn the basics - and limits - of British sovereignty and democracy.

[RedToothBrush]

There is a plan.

It is not a very good one, but May says she has a plan.

As May declared a revolution and set out her vision for a Britain ‘open’ for free trade and hard working people she managed to further drive in the wedge of division into a society which needed measured and sensitive handling.

Her speech was met, with much derision and horror both here and abroad. Even UKIP voices say the Conservatives went too far.

Brexit began to take shape. It appeared hard and fast. Without the consent of parliament. It was to be run by the executive alone. As the ex-Polish Foreign Minister points out, the shape of it decided because it was viewed as the ‘easiest’ option. Not the one in the best interests of the country. Leaving the EU has become indistinguishable to the Single Market. We are told by Mr Davis that there is no down side to this.

Then something else began to happen and the plan is beginning to not look so clever…

The pound plunged.

Mr Hammond, who has seemed to have resisted the urge to take the hallucinatory drugs being handed out in vast quantities around the Cabinet Table, came out saying that we must consider the economic reality of Brexit.

It was followed by a leaked paper that put the cost of Hard Brexit at between £38bn and £66bn a year. Our EU membership cost £8bn last year. Where are those NHS buses now?

The government response? Oh that was George. He just made it up for ‘Project Fear’. Or something to that effect.

The government on the one hand were saying how great Brexit will be, yet were not prepared to make the case in parliament. The Times editorial came out as categorically for the Single Market. Even the Sun on Sunday editorial spoke up for the Single Market (though was still in the land of cake wanting immigration control too).

David Davis took to the Commons to answer questions and was met with a chorus of rising alarm. Whilst he confirmed that the majority of EU citizens here do have their right to remain here as being their legal entitlement, it does not guarantee their rights under this. He echoed the language of the citizen of nowhere in May’s speech and, perhaps can be seen to make, the stark message that you should consider taking on British Citizenship.

Parliament has started to wake up to what is at stake. It is not just whether we stay in the EU or not, but Brexit presents a challenge to democratic processes and threatens to bypass the checks and balances to power that parliament is supposed to provide. It is a threat to our international reputation as a champion of liberal values and democratic stature. It is a threat to our economic security. It is a threat to our diplomatic relations, with the reckless comments and language coming from some. .

The stirrings of rebellion and a credible opposition come from a variety of quarters. From both leavers and remainers alike. From every party including the governments. Initially the government refused to give, so Labour announced an opposition debate on transparency of Brexit and it all started to fall apart. Faced with a vote they could not get enough support to win they made an apparent U-Turn and agreed to parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s position ahead of a50 within certain limits.

Keir Starmer, making the point that Human Rights Lawyers are not to be messed with, has written 170 questions, one for every day before the end of March when a50 is due to be triggered, for Davis to respond to.

However, the agreement to this debate on negotiations is none binding and there is no date for it as yet. The government must not be allowed to pay lip service to rebels. They must be held to this reversal.

Today’s opposition debate seems to suggest that the government definition of scrutiny is wheeling out David Davies and get him to waffle a lot and not say anything. This has gone down like a lead balloon. The government can not maintain this. Something will give. He has still refused to release a green or white paper which many expected.

May’s choice will be blunt. She either keeps pretending Santa is real and can deliver the pony whilst losing the house in the process or she owns up to the looming cold hard truth of reality.

May might be fully committed to taking us off the cliff top no matter what but she’s going to have to fight to get there.

In the best interests of the country the pressure must be kept up. There must be resistance to the ‘Little England’ mentality and orders by the Mail and the Express to silence those unpatriotic ‘agents of Brussels’ who are raising legitimate concerns that need to be considered as part of the process.

Its either this or we will have to rely on the proposed new Royal Yacht to send Kate off round the world begging for trade deals “to once again project the prestige of this nation across the globe” as Mr Gove says. Prestige we still had before the referendum was announced.

www.facebook.com/pestonitv/posts/1713933825598022
Robert Peston FB post

Why the road to Brexit that we choose may be as important to our prosperity as Brexit itself

^Brexit means we are leaving the EU, to repeat the bleedin' obvious.
But did that momentous vote tell us anything about precisely when we are leaving and the glide path to exit?^

I mention this because there has been almost no public debate about the transitional arrangements for leaving. And yet these transitional arrangements could be as economically important as the long term destination.

The point is that a cabinet consensus appears to be building for the UK to negotiate perhaps 40 sectoral trade deals with the EU, to replicate our current membership of the EU single market for our most important industries.

But those negotiations could take a good decade to complete, if the experience of other countries like Switzerland are a guide.

So the question - which is troubling our big exporting companies - is what our access to the European Union's single market will be in 2019, when our article 50 negotiations with the other 27 EU member nations will have exhausted their time limit, and we'll have left the EU.

Would our manufacturers then face tariffs based on the World Trade Organisation's menu on their exports to the EU (tariffs that would inflate the price of British-made cars by around 10% for example)? Would our financial services companies face prohibitions on what they can sell to much of the rest of Europe?

It is this possible introduction into the trading system of new costs and friction in just over two years that is prompting some big companies to consider shifting investments and jobs across the Channel, to swerve those possible barriers to trade.

The point is that even if by 2027 we might have trading arrangements with the EU comparable to today's, 2027 is another world when it comes to corporate planning horizons - and few boards would make big UK investments now when there is so little certainty about the trading framework for a decade, and even the destination in 2027 is amorphous.

Which is why there is talk about whether we could remain as temporary members of the single market, perhaps via the European Economic Area, till sectoral market-access deals are in place.

However this would prohibit us from putting in place new immigration controls for many years, and would oblige us to keep paying into Brussels' coffers.

Or to put it another way, Brexit would not mean Brexit Now, but Brexit Deferred?

Is that what 17m voted for? Would the Tory Party hold together if confronted with such a long road to the exit?

Those are judgements that the prime minister has just a few weeks and months to make. And they will determine the prosperity for most of us for the forecastable future.

Peter Ungphakorn ‏@CoppetainPU
2 assumptions in models have changed: (1) Art50 not immediate, (2) UK-EU relation too fixed, not "bespoke deal".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37703096
Hammond says Treasury’s EU economic shock analysis 'partially invalid'

Jessica Elgot ‏@jessicaelgot
Hilary Benn elected chair of the @DexEUgov committee. @YvetteCooper gets Home Affairs.

House of Commons ‏@HouseofCommons
MPs vote against the Opposition Motion on the rights of EU nationals by 293 to 250
Rights of EU nationals:
That this House recognises the contribution that nationals from other countries in the EU have made to the UK; and calls on the Governmet to ensure that all nationals from other countries in the EU who have made the UK their home retain their current rights, including the rights to live and work in the UK, should the UK exit the EU.

ScotGovEurope ‏@ScotGovEurope
.@FionaHyslop & @Feorlean meeting EU lead Brexit negotiator @GuyVerhofstadt for another positive discussion on Scotland's place in Europe

With accompanying photograph of them with Verhofstadt.

The link is probably this one: Hammond says the analysis of the economic shock of Brexit is partially invalid. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37703096

Though there also appears to be a concerted attempt to undermine the BoE - Hammond says it stays independent but www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/18/william-hague-attacks-bank-of-england-over-ultra-low-interest-rates

Wouldn't that be just peachy? interest rate rises just as food and fuel inflation kicks in.

Graham Lanktree @Te1eGraham
UK's post-#Brexit trade deal hinges on outcome of secretive #EU court case #trade #UK

www.ibtimes.co.uk/uks-post-brexit-trade-deal-hinges-outcome-secretive-eu-court-case-1586798
UK's post-Brexit trade deal hinges on outcome of secretive EU court case
EU judges will decide if Britain must deal with 27 nations on free trade.

Whether national governments should be able to veto trade negotiations brokered by the bloc has been a burning question this week as opposition from the small Belgian region of Wallonia held up signing the Canada-EU free-trade agreement (CETA).

The court case will determine whether the national governments of EU Member States continue to have the right to sign off on trade deals.

It will have a monumental impact on the UK's ability to strike a good deal with the rest of the EU — its biggest trading partner — and ensure the economic success of Brexit. But so far the case has escaped the spotlight.

and

At issue, and what the judges must decide, is whether the European Commission has the right to negotiate and conclude trade agreements on its own without passing them through the current 28 members states' national governments for approval.

It "could potentially decide whether EU Member States have a veto in negotiating the new trade relationship with the UK," said Dr Andrés Delgado Casteleiro, a senior researcher and expert in European law at the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg.

I wonder if this would also be applicable to a reverse of a50 too? Should it come to that.

The veto for chair of the Brexit Select Committee who are to scrutinise Brexit was:
Hilary Benn (remain supporter) 330
Kate Hoey (leave supporter) 209

This is an interesting split, and perhaps gives a hint for how the House is currently split on the issue.

Cecile - I see that it started about independence and the camp they set up at Holyrood, but reading the tweets from the reporter in court, and the BBC summary of the last time they were in court, it seems that they are relying on the Old Testament for part of their argument, and it sounds a little bit like one of those 'Freemen on the Land' trials!

Mike Smithson ‏@MSmithsonPB
Corbyn defeated over Commons Brexit Committee chair. He wanted leaver Hoey. Benn won

Yes, that's right! Ah, freemen on the land...

So they still exist then? I thought that was a 70s fad?

Sadly smallfox they still exist, and they are still bonkers. There's an awesome thread somewhere in AIBU about those 'Legal Name' posters that popped up everywhere, if you want to search for it. It is hilarious.

There was one in the pub where I had my first job.

There was one in a pub I worked in, too. He was quite convinced that the licensing laws didn't apply to him, so last call wasn't something he had to abide by. He used to get very angry when we wouldn't serve him.

I don't know how reliable a source buzzfeed is but this report about selling beef to Japan made me laugh.

www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/britain-in-breach-of-belfast-agreement-duties-says-ff-1.2835176
Britain in breach of Belfast Agreement duties, says FF

Fianna Fáil justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said Ireland did not amend Articles Two and Three of the Constitution to allow “some ambiguous unknown British Bill of Rights” replace the European Convention on Human Rights Act as it operates in Northern Ireland.

He sharply criticised Britain’s preparation for Brexit as “abysmal” and warned that the British population was being guided through an enormous crisis “by inexperienced politicians whose compasses are set not by the interests of the British people but by feelings of emotion and English nationalism”.

He also said Ireland was “grossly unprepared” for Britain’s departure and he criticised the budget which was “completely inadequate in seeking to deal with the threat posed to this country by Brexit”.

Speaking during a late night debate on Budget 2017, Mr O’Callaghan warned of the constitutional as well as economic consequences of Brexit for Ireland.

Highlighting the vote in Northern Ireland to remain, he said the Government needed to “carefully nourish” the recognition by unionists for the first time that their interests are best served, not by being part of the UK, but by being part of a federal European system.

and

He said it was sometimes forgotten that there were two agreements involved.

One was a multiparty agreement between the parties in Northern Ireland and the second, an international agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Looks like trouble ahead.

That agreement was registered as an international treaty in the United Nations.

“We agreed to amend Articles Two and Three of the Constitution. In return the British state agreed to change its legal system so that the European Convention on Human Rights would be incorporated into British law,” he said.

You could imagine that if Theresa May decides that International treaties, in this case with Ireland, can just be torn up because she finds them inconvenient and 'the people have spoken', then other countries might decide to tear up a few treaties too. Thinking here of Spain, Gibraltar and the Treaty of Utrecht.

Peregrina that is already happening post-prisoner voting debacle. There is no international police force to enforce them.

The business community is getting increasingly anxious. Apparently the EU has tried and failed over 8 years to negotiate trade deals with India, so why would the UK be any more successful, without now being able to offer access to EU markets?
Also India want 'greater access for skilled and technical staff' in return: unpopular in these immigration-sensitive times?
There is a 'widely-shared consensus that TM's government is a shambles'.

uk.businessinsider.com/brexit-analysis-sir-thomas-harris-on-brexit-and-trade-deals-with-india-2016-10

Allister Heath in the Telegraph reads as though it were written by Gove:
"But the Remainers are staging a fight-back which is beginning to inflict serious damage on the Brexiteer cause.
Every piece of bad news is blamed on Brexit; an endless supply of reports, economic “forecasts” and articles explain how leaving the EU is self-evidently bound to hurt us, slash our GDP, make us the world’s laughing stock and wreck our prosperity."

"In any normal circumstances such claims would be shot to pieces by a pro-Brexit campaign within minutes of their publication. But that’s just it: there no longer is a pro-Brexit campaign. Liam Fox, Boris Johnson and David Davis are making good speeches, and are building an extensive new administrative apparatus; but the full might of the Government isn’t meaningfully behind the Three Brexiteers."
"Prior to the referendum, David Cameron had 50 of the best civil servants camped out in the Cabinet Office, waging war against Brexit; the Prime Minister needs to create a similar body, making the opposite case. "

Given how well that last one worked for Cameron, why would anyone in favour of Brexit think it would be a good idea?

In any normal circumstances such claims would be shot to pieces by a pro-Brexit campaign within minutes of their publication

Whaaaaaat?

But that’s just it: there no longer is a pro-Brexit campaign

What would their campaign be? The leave campaign promised money for the NHS that doesn't exist and hedged around whether it would be necessary to leave the common market.

They might be distancing themselves now, but without UKIP voters the Leave campaign would not have won. This is a party who lurch from one bizarre disaster to the next, and whose 'leader' is one of few politicians practically and vocally supporting Trump. It's all very well trying to nab UKIP votes, but in government, what do you do next?

It just reads like another attempt to get people to agree that Brexit will be great and to refute anything suggested by anyone to the contrary.

He does conveniently gloss over the fact that most of the 'rebutting' done by the Leave campaign the first time turned out to be bullshit, as indeed did most of their campaign (as evidenced by Johnson et al going back on it all on the Friday morning). Plus it is another 'oh don't listen to the experts' rant.

Maybe ge should bring Farage back into a new "Brexit campaign"...

Today's elections:
Witney by election - DC's old seat, the one the LibDems have been aiming heavily at.

Batley and Spen by election - Jo Cox's seat, Labour candidate is Tracey Brabin, ex of Coronation Street. The Tories/LibDems are not standing candidates, as agreed following the murder of Jo Cox. There are a bunch of independents plus a wide selection of far-right 'parties'.

Wey Valley council - Conservative
Strood South - Ukip (resigning councillor is Mark Reckless's wife)
Central Sandhurst - Conservative
Clarence (Herts) - Lib Dem
Bumpstead (Essex) - Conservative
Witham North - Conservative
Heacham - Conservative
Rothwell (Northants) - Labour
Blaengwrach - Labour
Abergele Pensarn - Labour
St Mary's (EYorks) - Conservative
Central (Middlesbrough) - Labour

But that’s just it: there no longer is a pro-Brexit campaign

Talk about the bleedin' obvious - we have been trying to get the Brexiters to tell us for four months now, what they voted For. (With sensible replies from one, or maybe two.)

"In any normal circumstances such claims would be shot to pieces by a pro-Brexit campaign within minutes of their publication. But that’s just it: there no longer is a pro-Brexit campaign.

I have mulled over this, and it strikes me there is an inherent irony - if not comedy - in the woes of the Brexiters. And if I am right, then to quote the late Karen Carpenter, "It's only just begun".

Whilst at the time - and immediately after the vote, the genius of the Leave campaign in harnessing a section of the electorate which had previously been unengaged with politics it's also proving to be their Achilles heel, as they have simply lost momentum. It's all very well swinging 52% to win the battle. However, now the war has started, is it still 52% ? Because I suspect that the people who were previously disengaged have gone back to being disengaged; having fulfilled their once in a generation civic duty.

Meanwhile, Remainers - well - remain fairly constant.

If you throw into the demographics a mortality rate of 7,000/week (thus already c. 100,000 fewer voters who were more likely to be in the 4% margin) you can start to smell the Brexit fear.

And the longer things go on, it won't get any easier for them.

I wonder if Boris knows what Pyrrhic victory means ? In Italian ??

But Theresa May is taking that 52% to be a mandate for her particularly nasty brand of Brexit. She will happily destroy the country it seems, as long as she makes her mark.

It's hard not to avoid the creeping impression that T. May is moving so fast and so nasty because she fears standing still ...

Now summers over, and I've had a chance to bump into a few of my employers European colleagues, I've found an theme developing which has been variously articulated, but generally goes ..

"You know, when the UK was wanting to be part of the EU, every country in the EU wanted for the UK - and the EU - to do well. Now the UK is not so keen on the EU, not so many countries are quite as keen to see it do so well; especially when we still want the EU to do well."

(It sounds better with a Flemish accent)