Westministenders. Boris we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy Constitutional Crisis?

[RedToothBrush]

Its twelve days to go until the end of the HoC 2016 calendar and we can already tell that everyone is wishing it was Christmas already. Poor Theresa though, she doesn’t get to play with toys on the last day of term. Instead she has a grilling on the lack of spending on health and social care spending by a commons select committee.

Hopefully the next couple of weeks will calm down a little though as thoughts turn elsewhere.

The A50 case has come to an end. There is no way of telling which way the judges will go but the decision to appeal may yet haunt the government as it will bring the issue of devolution to a head, whether they win or lose. The ruling is due in mid January.

Win and they are going to have to amend the Devolution Acts and potentially impose Brexit on people with certain national identities who voted against it. This is profoundly undemocratic and a betrayal of the principles of Devolution and the expectations of the will of the people.
Lose and they could face a full blown constitutional crisis, with NI or Scotland or both having a veto over Brexit, and the government effectively unable to trigger a50 in line with our constitutional requirement. Which is again, potentially profoundly undemocratic and against the referendum and the expectations of the will of the people.

It was a scenario that predictable and avoidable at several junctions yet the government under Cameron and May ploughed on regardless. It a scenario that we are now locked into, due to deciding to use the courts rather than just go through parliament.

It could also massively restrict the power of the executive under the Royal Prerogative. Ironically this is something that David Davis has campaigned for, for years so I guess he gets a victory however the decision goes.
So the chances of some kind of crisis with regard to our constitutional makeup and the union seem inevitable in the new year.

The government despite a defeat in Richmond Park continues to lean right and characterise anyone with concerns as unpatriotic or not honourable. This is the last resort of the desperate.

They have however, conceded to Labour that they will publish a report on their Brexit plans before a50 is triggered. In return Labour have promised that they will let a50 be triggered by the end of March. Is this a good thing? It remains to be seen. In some ways this is a blinder for Labour.

They are pro-Brexit but anti-lack of plan in theory. This only works if the plan actually has substance. If there is no substance in the plan and its nothing more than empty words then they face having to go back on a commons vote committing them to a deal with the Conservatives. It could therefore be a trap for them. It marginalises the none English Nationalist voices too. Voices that are important and deserve to be heard. Voices that if they are not listened to, will have consequences.

What will the Sleaford and North Hykenham (yep again) by election bring?

A vote of confidence in the government, a new ever growing and rising fear of UKIP or something else. How will this colour the start to the New Year?

I don’t know. 2016 has apparently been the year of gin as people turn to the drink to cope. Everything is now Brexitty and Red, White and Blue.
But whose’s? Britain’s? The USA’s? Russia’s? Or France’s?

We look forward to, or more to the point we fear what 2017 could bring. A feeling we have not felt to this degree in many years. A General Election with a UKIP breakthrough. The end of peace in NI. A repeat of the age old betrayal of Scotland’s by the English. The Welsh damned to irrelevance and marginalisation. Brexit vettoed and the subsequent political fallout. The end of the NHS. A bonfire of rights. A new Italian PM and possibly new Eurozone economic crisis. Fillon or Le Pen and at last a real victory for the far right in Europe. The chance of Merkel’s Last Stand. Putin’s partnership with Assad and a new genocide we are powerless to stop. Erdogan pulling the plug on the EU door and unleashing a new wave of refugees onto European shores. The horror of ISIS both within the West and within the Middle East. Trump’s neo-fascism and rise of a New World Order. There is something in there for everyone to dread.

Which will it be? Probably something we have not yet foreseen such are these times.

Act 2 of Brexit in Westminstenders land is bound to be just as dramatic and of course, we leave 2016 in true soap fashion on a real cliff hanger.

All the more reason to enjoy the holiday period and break whatever your politics.

I not sure I'd be able to look if you did castel. I remember checking out BF's FB page when I first heard about them. Lots of extremely amateurish photos on there of her as their glamorous face.

I don't actually watch CBB any more, thank god, but how can this be ok?

Presumably it would be particularly difficult to prove given that Clinton actually got quite a lot more votes? You'd have to indicate how it boosted the Trump vote in certain areas and not others.

Also if Nate Silver is right and Comey lost the election for Hilary, that presumably doesn't have any link to Russia, unless they are in really deep!

Interesting article on the Trump/Putin/Exxon love-in. I may post it on the Trump thread but that's probably pointless.

thinkprogress.org/trump-putin-and-exxonmobil-team-up-to-destroy-the-planet-fb88650acfa1#.wt4nhc9e0

www.newstatesman.com/politics/education/2016/12/why-does-government-want-know-your-child-s-nationality
Gruesome. And Channel 4 is doing a ukips election broadcast, is that normal? When will I wake up and discover it was all a very bad dream?

Crikey, I knew I shouldn't have started following Louise Mensch again.

Russia knew Snowden would spy on NSA.

heatst.com/world/assange-doc-suggests-russia-knew-in-advance-ed-snowden-would-spy-on-nsa/?mod=sm_tw_post

They're very shouty, those other threads. www.wnyc.org radio station has nice analysis sometimes, ( good one on Russian links now) the NYT seems terrified already. I find the BBC unlistenable now, it's like Lord Haw Haw.

castle I wish it was a nightmare.

What I am finding a real nightmare is the fact that people don't seem to see how their liberties are being eroded one after the other.
That, the surveillance of all calls/text/internet, the refusal to involve MP in decisions that are critical to the country, the refusal to remind people that the judiciary system is separated from the political and that no judges do not take decisions beased on their political beliefs, the slow but sure movement that sees human rights, unions rights, workers rights be eradicated.

And no one seem to scream about it and see the full picture.

Re the proposed cuts to international student numbers, why is anyone surprised? TM has long had a bee in her bonnet about them, from back in the mists of time. It stands to reason: to her (and the voters she is courting) there is no downside to wrecking the universities.

Foreigners - bad. Foreigners who might stay on and get jobs - worse. Foreigners who might stay, get jobs and settle here, perhaps (horrors!) with a British partner - even worse.

Experts (also known as university academics) - bad. University academic experts who can be stereotyped as metropolitan liberal elite, rootless cosmopolitan citizens of the world citizens of nowhere - worse. University academic experts who can be stereotyped as metropolitan liberal elite, rootless cosmopolitan citizens of the world citizens of nowhere, who are probably not Tory voters - worst of all.

It's killing two birds with one stone.

The full picture seems to be that TM thinks she has Carte Blanche to do whatever she wants as long as she can claim its part of Brexit.

With you there Marjorie.
30/40 years ago, we'd have had public meetings, anti racist groups would and did organise vast free festivals, churches or religious organisations with any integrity would have had meetings, trades union members would have organised action, women's groups would have united to fight back at international attacks on our rights, and the underground and overground press would have been producing great articles by Martha Gelhorn, Alistair Cooke and Maya Angelou on what's happening. And the tone of discourse wouldn't have been so base and infantile. The loss of a functioning labour party feels like being politically orphaned.

Fretting whether to put up a post on AIBU about a fascist on telly, doesn't really seem to be my greatest contribution to the furtherance of democracy!

TheElements - it's not the students coming to Oxbridge who TM is worried about, it's the thousands coming to take lower level courses that will add not a lot to the sum of human knowledge. It's the thousands who are only coming so that they get a valid entry into the UK, knowing that they can slip under the radar pretty easily. Or the thousands that are coming but intending never to return home but will - legally - set off a chain of migration involving the spouse to be, granny and other family members who can be squashed into the definition for immigration purposes.

Agree elements and this country is not indigenously endowed with brains, we need all the help we can get.

It's the thousands who are only coming so that they get a valid entry into the UK, knowing that they can slip under the radar pretty easily.

How are they more under the radar than anybody just coming to the UK for a holiday?

Most people in the world can visit the UK pretty easily. If you just want to slip under the radar and work illegally, why bother being a student?

castle What I am finding a real nightmare is the fact that people don't seem to see how their liberties are being eroded one after the other.
Well I was told time and again at the weekend that people not accepting Brexit should be stood against the wall. Not me, obviously, they said. It is that kind of atmosphere. Noone is going to worry about some state spying.

Olenna the bogus institutions that were set up to cash in on bogus students partly because deregulation allowed them to have been largely closed down. The students that were rounded up into vans and taken to detention centres because they happened to sit a language test that May decreed bogus but the courts have since ruled legal were at universities like Edinburgh, UCL and even Imperial. Rudd is implementing a system of gold, silver and bronze to determine which universities are worthy of respect, except that the criteria are only partially to do with academic rigour and focus on consumer measures like student satisfaction, employment stats et. Amongst those universities expected to end up graded bronze are LSE (even though it currently has courses that are more prestigious sought after internationally than Oxford or Cambridge) and KCL

The article is quoting students applying to institutions of that ilk being turned down for visas because they did not know the library opening hours or the name of the Vice Chancellor.

These students are coming here and helping to keep some of our most illustrious academic institutions funded. Applications from India are already down by 50% as a result of students perceiving that they risk being treated badly if theyvapply here, and the universities in the US, Australia and Singapore are the beneficiaries.

It is shooting ourselves in the foot.

Well I was told time and again at the weekend that people not accepting Brexit should be stood against the wall.

The North By the way the Opium Wars were a little more nuanced than the Brits forcing drugs on China. 90% of Opium was homegrown, we just provided the high quality of Opium for the luxury end of the market. The social mores around its consumption helped moderate its effect. Arguably worse damage to a society was done by the gin shops of London, you were far more likely to be involved in violence for instance after. Certainly not the horrific effects once Opium started to be distilled into heroin.

China fell pray to gunboat diplomacy as much because of internal weakness, and the way in which the internal processes of government had become stretched, as because of western imperialist might. I recommend Julia Lovells book, or the one on narcotic culture in Lars Laaman and Frank Dikotter, all very readable. Julia Lovell starts out with the true story about Canpmeron being told not to wear a poppy too, nobody can find any government official who actually did that and the Chinese online forums basically came down in approval of having a symbol to commemorate those who died in the World Wars, many more of course and with even greater brutality in China.

Cameron!

Blimey Castelnau - that's horrific!

whatwould - the institutions that have been shut down have largely been done so because TM did indeed "have a bee in her bonnet" about them when she was Home Sec - Labour didn't care too much to take effective action, and the introduction of the Points Based System led to a swell in non-genuine student visa applications which had to be granted because they met the objective criteria. (Please can you point me towards the article you mentioned - I can't find it in the thread, thanks)

merrymouse - a student visa gives legal status for the length of the course, plus a few months extra, along with the right to work (limited, but there) and the right to bring dependents (also much limited compared to the past, but there for many students). Add in the fact that visitor visas are decided almost entirely subjectively and student visas are decided almost entirely objectively, if I were looking to come to the UK and could possibly qualify for a student visa, I would take this option over a visitor visa any day.

It was TheNorthRemembers but still not good.

Olenna The article is here www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/12/uk-halve-international-student-visa-tougher-rules

I am still involved with London universities so the information about the Border agency van turning up at International House (hall of residence /cultural centre serving all the University of London constituent universities.) is personal experience as is the frustration felt within universities that are ranked amongst the very best in the world .

Coming back to Brexit ...

Finally ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38295358

Chancellor Philip Hammond has backed a transitional deal for Brexit saying it would be "helpful" to allow longer than two years for the UK's EU exit.

Mr Hammond told the Treasury select committee that there was an "emerging view" that having longer would tend towards a "smoother transition"

(contd)

whatwouldrondo Thank you for the suggestions. They are going on my wishlist.

Olennas - I strongly doubt whether there are the 'thousands' coming to take 'low level courses' who will then bring in spouse, granny etc. etc. but even if that were the case, Theresa May and now Amber Rudd's blunderbuss approach is preventing students taking higher level courses from coming in. Unless you don't think Sheffield or Cardiff University or UCL offer high quality courses. These students are already going elsewhere - they are finding a welcome in Canada and Australia.