Westministenders. For God sake Boris, is that the best plan you can come up with?

[RedToothBrush]

Its now five months from the referendum. Plans for leaving should be well advanced by now. Shouldn't they? We should have got past this ridiculous idea that we can have our cake and eat it. Yet the plan is a secret, well apart from when the EU leak things to the press or junior ministers let their underlings carry their notes for them.

A photo taken this week outside Downing Street, suggests that the ‘Have Cake And Eat It’ Plan really is seriously being considered by the government. This plan is 'clear' it has been spelt out many times by the government and yet no one has a fucking clue what it is apart from a car crash of utter nonsense, wishful thinking and fingers in the ears. Its so clear that Theresa May has admitted she is losing sleep over it, and has faith that God will steer us through via her moral compass (which I suspect to have been left on top of a rather large electro-magnet given her track record so far)

Still this, however, seems to be better than the ‘Fuck You’ Plan (or should that be 'Fuck EU') that is official UKIP policy and is to ignore a50 and leave the EU unilaterally. And possibly illegally, so no one will ever want to make an international agreement with the UK.

And this, is still at least better than ‘We Have No’ Plan that Labour have.

Other suggested plans are:
The ‘Lets Leave the UK and Screw Ourselves Another Way’ Plan as supported by the SNP which the majority of Scots seem to be against
The Welsh are quietly cultivating the ‘Shh Nobody Mention We Voted Leave But Are Now Going to be Difficult’ Plan as they suddenly realise they are about to be shafted financially and might lose the Welsh Assembly in the process.
NI might still go down the ‘Lets Unify Ireland and Start Another Chapter in Violence’ Plan though, the alternative might well be the ‘Lets Stay in the Union and Start Another Chapter in Violence’ Plan anyway, so they are screwed due to the immense thoughtfulness of the English.
Meanwhile the Lib Dems are all about the ‘Lets Just Not Do This and Instead Risk a Revolt’ Plan.

If anyone does actually have a coherent plan, then there are lots of parties who would love to hear from you.

Lets be honest about the secrecy though. Its not about the EU knowing our plans. They already know what all our options are, or more to the point, aren't. The government want to keep it out of parliament because they want to control it, and because they don't want the press to know. They do not want transparency, as they are so weak and so fearful that they will be shown up for what they are, even when there is no opposition.

So we are screwed. Unless somehow someone comes to their senses and puts it to the EU that a50 isn’t fit for purpose and that a new treaty must be done to respect the democratic will of the people and the EU let us go down that route (Hey didn’t I say that months ago?).

Tomorrow we have the completely pointless and costly vanity by-election for Zac Goldsmith. The referendum about Heathrow and not at all about Brexit. Latest betting 2/7 on Goldsmith and 5/2 on the Lib Dems. I think Goldsmith with his good looks will just sneak it, unless turnout is really low. But it will be close.

Sunday we have the Italian Referendum, which some have suggested would the Italian Bank Melt Down (and start of a new Eurozone Crisis) though many here say this fear is massively over stated through Brexit tinted spectacles. Sunday also sees the Austria Presidential Election Re-run with the Far Right Candidate currently looking like he has the slight edge.

A50. The Supreme Court case starts next week. Scotland say they have a veto. Wales say they are worried about the Devolution Problem. NI still might have their defeat in the High Court overturned and there is the Good Friday agreement. The Supreme Court might insist that the Great Repeal Act might need to be passed before we can invoke a50. And the plan if the government lose is merely a 3 line Bill which they want to rush through in 5 days no one would dare defy. Well except the Lib Dems are already saying they want amendments to ensure parliamentary scrutiny and what is the point of the Lords if they don't. So there is a fair old chance that if the government loses given the wider scope of the Supreme Court Case, a 3 line bill simply won’t cover everything it needs to.

We still don’t know if the ECJ might get involved. It seems the Republic of Ireland, might have a say in that too. An ECJ referral would mean a 4 to 8 month delay, even with the sensitivity and the importance of the case.

Don’t forget if you were planning on going/worried about it the 100,000 March on the Supreme Court is off. Due to not being planned in the first place although Leave.Eu will tell you different.

Speaking of the Great Repeal Act. This is supposed to be started in May. This would give it less than two years to be ready before we left the EU. Yet it has a load of hurdles to leap in its sheer complexity, and there is a real danger this will not be long enough. If not done correctly it has the potential to mean the legal system would “fall over”. This is basically the legal equivalent of when you mean yourself in a time travelling sci-fi creating a paradox which threatens the very existence of time itself.

A127. Another treaty, another challenge? Possibly, but maybe only a way to bargain for the EEA rather than something more. But it just shows the legal headache Brexit is. We still could end up in the ECJ on any number of other issues – not just a50. You know this legal headache the government is ignoring by having no lawyer in the Brexit Cabinet, and UKIP are just plan delusional about.

Anyway UKIP have a new leader. Paul Nuttalls. (sic – see Stuart Lee). He wants to privatise the NHS though he denies having said it either on camera or on his blog. Everytime anyone says ‘Paul Nuttalls to you, remember to say ‘Oh the one who wants to privatise the NHS?’ Just to make sure everyone is away that he wants to privatise the NHS. Repeat Ad nauseam. Hell this is what Labour are going to be doing, as they are bloody terrified. Why? Simple. He will, of course, be hugely popular despite this cos he’s got the right accent and says the ‘right things’. By ‘right things’ I mean cos he spouts utter bollocks. Which probably means he’s also electable seeing as utter bollocks is now political currency. Plus Labour are rather lacking in any policies, so utter bollocks policies easily fill the void.

Talking of utter bollocks, I haven’t mentioned Trump yet. The Greens have requested a recount and are supported by the Democrats, though they say they haven’t found anything dubious themselves yet. Trump says it’s a scam. Goebbels once said when telling the Big Lie accuse your opposition of what you are guilty of yourself, so I'm not betting either way given that is the political strategy Trump has employed with gusto. I dread to think of the mess that would cause if the recount came out in favour of Clinton.

So another couple of fun weeks on the cards, which will have you reaching for the gin and wondering if there is anyone left alive who actually gives a toss about what happens to real people and isn’t prepared to commit economic and democratic suicide.

Only another month to go before the 2016 Repeal Act comes into force. 2017 looks smashing.
Shamelessly stolen from David Allen Green

Btw, just going back to that report I mentioned yesterday and this point:

We looked at the relationship between how people voted and what they thought the UK’s long-term EU policy should be. This shows that a significant majority of those who think the UK’s long-term policy should be to stay in the EU and reduce its powers voted Remain in the Referendum. However, at the same time, around one in five, even though their underlying preference was to stay in the EU, voted Leave.

The majority therefore want the EU in some form; albeit at least considerably reformed. Or they want Brexit and there are a majority that favour it to be very like the EU and soft in nature.

Is there actually a real difference in these two positions apart from the name?

I think this is important question to ask and point out.

No one is spinning anything in this way. This is where consensus is. This is where the genuine majority is.

Guy Verhofstadt sees the future of the EU as two tier and that it needs reform. Is that really that different to where most of the UK sit?

Yet, we have dickheads going off on one about honour and not representing the country by not being hardliners on Brexit. Who is REALLY out of touch?

Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax

So much spoken about the evils of the metropolitan elite. I wonder why we’ve heard so little spoken about the rural aristocratic elite!

Red My 5 year old has the story of "The Wee Lassie who swallowed a Midgie". When she eventually has to swallow a Nessie it is only by swallowing the whole Loch she is able to flush everything out. Currently pondering how to rework the story to explain the whole UK Constitution as the wee lassie in question's is pretty robust

tbf there are plenty of Non types blasting off on the EU side atm too!

On the issue of Faith state schools, a large part of the issue is that faith state schools have been here for a very long time, many state schools in the UK are actually owned by the churches, as in the land they are built on, if not the actual buildings. In my local area 3 out of the 5 primary schools are faith schools. Their admissions criteria cause huge problems for the local community, many of whom end up moving, going private, sending their children on long journeys or taking the easy route and sitting in a pew every Sunday, getting their child baptised etc (only recently did the schools adjudicator rule that the mother cleaning the church silver was not an acceptable criteria). However it would be an even bigger issue if the church took it's ball home and sold off all the land and buildings......

lt gives them a rather large bargaining chip. As I mentioned the Catholic Church and Church of England are also as a result experienced and professional educational services providers, something the Free School programme is short of.

The only realistic way to tackle the issue is by tackling discriminatory admissions policies, the 50% cap on faith admissions was a move in the right direction, now it looks as though we are heading the other way, and may even allow these schools full license to discriminate......

So those people who don't like Romanians and Bulgarians - are they going to be any happier with Albanians or North Africans?

Already happening in Southern Europe. Citrus, olive and tomato crops managed by gangmasters and picked by African migrants from the steady flow coming across the Med. No EU workers because you can pay the Africans even less. Also most workers are paid cash in hand as illegal, so no taxes or contributions either. Better to have EU migrants over on proper contracts rather than unidentified illegals who will be exploited even more and paid even less.

www.ft.com/content/624fcf9a-bbae-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080
Britain pushes covert diplomacy ahead of Brexit talks
Charm offensive aims to keep communication lines open before Article 50 triggered

Senior members of the Conservative party have stepped up contact with members of the European People’s Party, the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, to discuss the UK’s negotiating position.

Greg Hands, trade minister, and Mark Field, vice-chairman, are leading the initiative, along with senior staff from Conservative party headquarters. They are focusing in particular on Germany’s Christian Democrats, the Spanish People’s Party and the French Republicans. Theresa May, the UK prime minister, is also hoping that her personal friendship with Bernard Cazeneuve, the new French prime minister who was her counterpart when she was home secretary, will help the charm offensive.

Winning support in the European Parliament will be vital because that chamber must approve British exit terms and any future trade deal. The EPP is the dominant group in the parliament and its support is required to pass any measure.

This may not be an easy task: the Conservative party pulled out of the EPP in 2009, fulfilling a pledge that David Cameron, the former prime minister, made during his leadership campaign when he was keen to win over Eurosceptics.

and

EPP members said they were willing participants in informal engagements with Conservative figures because the bloc has no UK members, depriving it of a “British voice” and a direct line into London. The UK advisory group in the EPP, set up several months ago, draws its membership from the ranks of German, Dutch, Irish, Polish and Italian MEPs in the bloc.

Mark Field - he of the notes photographed last week fame.

Can't argue against this covert diplomacy in principle.

Law for 6 year olds is not without its complexities:

"Mr Gordon said the "fault line" through the government's argument was that while its executive "prerogative" powers could be used to make and unmake treaties, they could not "dispense with laws passed by Parliament".
"This is elementary," he said.
"A child of six, with respect, could understand this point."
Mr Gordon likened it to a six-year-old being able to understand if they were told they were allowed to play indoors but not outside.
But one of the justices, Lord Carnwath, said the analogy "doesn't really work" because the child had the power to disobey the order and go outside."

On UK workers willingness to do agricultural labour I know several twentysomethings who have done just that in order to extend their VISAs in Australia.

Also when I watched a recent BBC2 series on "dirty" jobs only migrant workers are prepared to do I was struck by how many of the manual processes could have been mechanised. Perhaps this is part of the reason for UK under investment and the productivity gap?

Math During communism the USSR brought government sponsored enlightenment to Cuba and central Asia including Afghanistan, with universal literacy as one of the central means by which science and exposure to European Russian culture (classical music, Marxist thought, centralised economy, etc) could overcome backwardness, religion and superstition.

Struggling a bit to apply this to Cuba. It was remember at the time of the revolution a de facto American colony where the Spanish / Creole (as in of Spanish blood, born in the empire) elite worked in cahoots with the sugar companies and gangsters to perpetuate a system of massive inequality. There was plenty of culture, especially rich in terms of music and dance, whether it was in the hotels and nightclubs frequented by gangsters and celebrities, or the salsa clubs of the cities or in the countryside. It is just it was American / South American culture, and I would not especially characterise it as "backward"

I am not an apologist for Castro but I have travelled in Cuba, on home stays. The recent outpouring of grief for Castro was genuine I am sure. People want greater freedom of speech, greater economic freedom but they do not want anybody's cultural or economic imperialism, America's, Russia's or China's. One of their reason's they grieve Castro, despite the protracted devastating effect of US sanctions, the reliance on Russia and subsequent economic disaster and food shortages and rationing when Russia turned it's back, is that he whilst he took from other nation's what was expedient. he stayed true to Cuba's culture. Every community had a cultural as well as political centre where there was debate about local issues, even local elections (China too has local elections, it is a means of overcoming local corruption) but also music and dance. Ballet entered the mix but only because it was such fertile ground (and one of his girlfriend's was a ballerina?) . I spoke to someone leading a trip from the Royal Ballet School there and expressed surprise given their long traditions. She said that you can teach the technique but you cannot replicate the spirit that the Cubans have in their soul.

Put it this way I would not try and use your argument on a Cuban.......

From BBC live feed:

McDonald's confirms UK move
McDonald's has confirmed it is setting up a new base in the UK, where it will pay corporation tax.

The fast food giant said the new office would be responsible for the majority of royalties earned outside the US.

^It comes as the EU investigates McDonald's tax affairs in Luxembourg.
The firm said it would move most of the international functions from Luxembourg to the UK. It added that it paid more than $2.5bn in corporate tax in the EU between 2011 and 2015.^

The UK tax haven starts...?

Kamal Ahmed ‏@bbckamal
So, McDonald's, Google, Facebook, Apple, Nissan all commit to UK post #Brexit Broad belief tax/investment environment will be better in UK?

Merry going back to US recounts. The reports I have read suggest cherry picking districts where the Democrats were most likely to pick up extra votes rather than demanding full State recounts. That is surely manipulating the vote rather than checking for accuracy? I have not been following very closely but my understanding is that the Wisconsin recount was stopped when it became clear it was likely to favour Trump

I think the whole concept of recounts being demanded by one side or the other is flawed. They should be independently audited and checked as a matter of course.

The whole concept of democracy relies on trust in the voting system.

howabout you mean they are migrants? motivated by a visa for a better backpacking experience? and it has status amongst their peers?

They recently clamped down on poor working conditions and abuses by farmers and reduced the level of tax they proposed to deduct. There was a fair bit of moaning from the farmers that they were not an efficient / reliable workforce but in the end as I recall the fact that New Zealand offered better working conditions was a factor in the final decision ......

Tax haven and weapons purveyors with targeting lessons to dodgy regimes. Death and taxes (evasion and laundering).

I agree that one needs to accept that a government has been elected, unless there is a strong evidence that any fraud changed the result, not just that there were instances of fraud.

But how do you find out about or identify whether the system is working if you don't check and review the results?

What will happen if the vote goes the other way next time or the time after that? How are they going to reassure people with guns that they should respect the result?

What would Trump be saying now if he had lost?

One last one for Math on the post Russian environment in Central Asia, and the way in which suppression of moderate Muslims (and even some who are not even Muslim) is leading to radicalisation.www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/08/central-asia-tajikistan-kazakhstan-kyrgyzstan-uzbekistan-turkmenistan

Love the twitter spat RTB - very funny!

Wrt fruit picking, I used to do it when I was a teen.
I always had 2 or 3 Saturday/Sunday/after school jobs on the go - waitressing, cleaning, shop work, chambermaid etc but used to pick up extra work in the seasons doing things like the berry picking & litter picking at various events.

Back in 1990, at 15 yrs old I was paid around £5 or £6 per hour to do litter picking - only app £1 less than today's min wage for over 25s. It was that amount because they needed the litter pickers & had to compete with the 'cleaner' jobs within the available workforce.

If you have a workforce willing to do the work for the minimum payment possible, then that's what employers do.
Not all, obviously as there are decent employers out there - but they're the exception, not the rule.

The problem is that it's only worthwhile to pick fruit in the UK if you can sell it more cheaply than foreign imports.

That doesn't just apply to fruit, but all products. Of course you can apply tarrifs to foreign imports, but is that the government's intention?

We have no idea of the economic thinking behind Brexit, because it's not possible to draw conclusions from the referendum. People were voting (on both sides) because of mutually exclusive goals.

That is why we need to know what the plan is.

Dan O'Brien @Danopedia
@Lawandpolicy Looks increasingly like Govt erred in SC appeal. Govt risks huge restrictions on RP & on Parl supremacy in Devolved matters.

Law and policy @Lawandpolicy
Government could still win. But, if not, this tweet is right.

Huge risk, and self-inflicted by May.

lawrence serewicz ‏@lldzne
@Lawandpolicy Are we on the cusp of a constitutional revolution in which rule of law constrains the Monarchy and closes prerogative window

Oooo how exciting. Isn't this what David Davis has campaigned for years? Imagine if he was to finally achieve it!

Chris Puttick ‏@putt1ck
@Lawandpolicy unless, & I keep wondering this, it's actually a really clever play to make an "EEA+" deal the only leave option

I doubt it, but interesting... especially when you look at who the royal prerog 'expert' is in all this...

Mango You are ignoring the economic argument. What worked economically back in the 1970s (when as I recall the offerings in supermarkets were very narrow) is not going necessarily going to be economic now. It is actually a very entitled argument to assume that it is businesses who are paying minimum wage because they want to as opposed to it being dictated by the market. There are greedy businessmen of course, but there are also many businesses that really struggle to be competitive in current markets. None of us, including our businesses are owed a living by the rest of the world.

Law and policy ‏@Lawandpolicy
(Sumption in neutral scarlet tie today.)

Very important detail.

Whatwould, I don't pretend to know anything about market forces in the 70s or now.
What I did do, was to respond to posts made earlier, which I quoted in my original post:

Thanks to Brexit, we need more foreign workers ...
So there has been a fall in applications from EU migrant workers to work on UK farms since the Brexit vote. It's causing crisis in some farms.
What's the government's solution? Apparently, relax visas so that we can get more short-term unskilled labour from outside the EU

So those people who don't like Romanians and Bulgarians - are they going to be any happier with Albanians or North Africans?

Obviously not. But it gets worse ... the further away you need to pull people from, the more you will need to pay them to cover the journey (which is one of the reasons that Poland hasn't seen an influx of UK workers. They just couldn't pay enough to cover the journey).
So we will see immigrants doing jobs locals won't for even more money.
That'll go down well ..

Those posts appeared to be pointing out that the wages of the workers will now need to rise, due to the 'cheap labour tap' of Eastern Europe turning itself off post Brexit.

I just replied that I don't think that's a bad thing.
Why are we ok with paying immigrants shit wages?

Why are we OK with paying anyone shit wages? Why can't a worker be worthy of his or her hire? Something has gone wrong with our Societies values.

I'm not sure that wages are the only issue with seasonal farming work. From what I gather it is often paid above the living wage. It's more that:

• this is short term seasonal work often in parts of the UK where there is a shortage of labour and low unemployment
• it's hard physical work and not attractive to local people, who would prefer to work in less arduous and more secure jobs (even if the hourly rate is lower)
• consumers and supermarkets want low prices, so the alternative to using imported labour is not to pay more, but to import the produce instead