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.

Interesting perspective about who may voted for / against Brexit & Trump.
The writer claims that city / rural is a big divide, with cities tending to be politically under-represented, because they have a significantly lower % of their population on the electoral register.
Also
"politics is dominated by voters who are less busy: country pensioners, unemployed or underemployed workers in ex-industrial areas"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/12/trump-brexit-cities-countryside-rural-voters

it's the thousands coming

Very curious to know whether olenna has any evidence to support those numbers, or whether this assertion is simply made up. (Don't doubt it happens. Interested to see evidence for "thousands" of cases).

Good piece here on trust, fake news and what happens when the burden of proof is flipped:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-all-news-is-fake-whom-do-we-trust/2016/12/12/b2203898-c081-11e6-afd9-f038f753dc29story.html?tid=smm_tw&utm_term=.5e20086193ec.

Without wanting to derail the thread into a student visas discussion, of course no-one (including the HO) has wholly dependable numbers on overstayers, as we still don't have a comprehensive exit control. This paper from MigrationWatch (yes, I know they are somewhat partisan, but their number-crunching is interesting and not many others are producing similar) contains a pertinent comment on a previous study on general overstaying in the UK by the LSE:

Overstayers are generally regarded as a much larger group that those who are smuggled in. Nationalities that are considered to pose a risk of overstaying are required to obtain a visa. Visas are issued at a rate of about 2 million a year to visitors, students, spouses etc (see Annex A). Each 1% that stays on adds 20,000 a year to the number overstaying.

The LSE estimate of 50,000 in seven years implies that 99.5% of the 12 million who were granted visas between 2001 and 2007 went home at the end of their legal stay. That is highly unlikely.

Even though student numbers have fallen significantly (by design and as a side-effect of policy changes) in recent years, there were still just over 200,000 student visas issued in 2015. Even if 1% of those overstayed, that would give 2,000 students a year overstaying, not including dependents (they are recorded separately in the immigration stats). On this occasion I would agree with MigrationWatch that 99% compliance is unlikely (very few systems achieve that, in any field). Hence thousands of student visa overstayers - low thousands probably, but thousands nonetheless.

Anyway, to bring this back to Brexit and wider political musings, I think there is a parallel between how Joe Public perceives overseas students and the benefits / costs of greater numbers, and how Joe Public perceives migrants more generally. Depending on your personal circumstances, you may benefit greatly and directly from lots of students (landlord in uni town; employer looking for new talent; hospitality and other service sectors who want more customers). Or you might only see that rents have gone up, the house next door is now a student let and keeps you up all night, the bus is full and you can't always get a seat, and the folk you bump into in the local shop don't seem to speak very good English so you don't think that they are genuinely here to study.

200,000 new students coming in every year adds a lot to the net migration stats, and frankly lots of Brexiteers will not particularly care that LSE's overseas student numbers are down or that UCL is struggling to fill a particular course (that's for the liberal elite in London to worry about....).

Olenna The point about limiting overseas student numbers is that it shows up the government's skewed priorities. Maybe a very few thousand overstay their visas, small beer compared to those who overstay their tourist visa or are brought into the country some other way, I have seen estimates of the number of illegal immigrants at between 450,000 and 1m. Overseas student contribute to local economies, but more importantly in an era of funding cuts they are a very important source of funding that sustain the universities in their role of delivering the skills the country needs and carrying out the research that sustains our competitive advantage in science and technology. I know that that Jo Johnson, the minister responsible, is well aware that this will be economically damaging as well as compromising the strength of our academia.

This is not a matter of it being a small inconvenience to the liberal elites. The combined effects of research collaboration with other EU teams and the loss of EU researchers and academics as a result of Brexit, targeting overseas student numbers for reduction, the introduction of student fees and cuts in funding are making those running some very important institutions that make a huge contribution to Britains academic, scientific, technological, economic, political and civic life concerned about whether they can survive. Universities in cities like York and Southampton which would leave a massive hole in the local economy if they end up having to rationalise or merge to survive.

Whilst there might have been an issue with bogus colleges and bogus students the possibility that overseas student visas might add a couple of thousand to the level of overstaying in no way justifies the damage that will be done by this proposal. The only reason overseas students are still in the statistics and a target for reduction is that they are an easy target, and Jo Public probably won't understand that the 100,000 that has come off the statistics was actually students who were overwhelmingly only going to be here for three or four years anyway, coming here spending their money and going home.

However TM is very clearly putting being able to spin the statistics, and keep the Conservatives in power over the long term economic good

Hadley seems to agree with us on trousergate www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/dec/12/tory-handbags-war-downing-street-nicky-morgan-misogyny-western-politics?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38297353
Further to Castel's link wrt the 10 Electoral College members..

I think this is turning into a circus.

Hence thousands of student visa overstayers - low thousands probably, but thousands nonetheless.

Migrationwatch thinks that the number of overstayers may run into the millions. In this context, the number of student overstayers is largely irrelevant.

I cannot for the life of me understand why anyone would consider this an adequate reason for inflicting serious economic self-damage - discouraging students is probably one of the single most damaging brexit-inspired policies.

While I can understand (although I by and large do not agree with) some of the concerns about migration, I find it very difficult to comprehend why someone would get behind policies which inflict such damage for such relatively small returns, in terms of their likely impact on illegal migration.

It should be emphasised here that the government is targeting students not because it makes any sense to do so from the point of view of discouraging illegal migration (and certainly not from the point of view of the economy, or of pressure on local services such as the NHS and schools since young adults consume little healthcare and don't usually have dependents) - but because they have to get the net migration figures down at literally any cost and student visas are an easy and quick "fix".

Bipartisan members of the electoral college, which meets on 19 Dec, have published an open letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper asking him to

"Release Facts on Outside Interference in U.S. Election"

https://extranewsfeed.com/bipartisan-electors-ask-james-clapper-release-facts-on-outside-interference-in-u-s-election-c1a3d11d5b7b#.8cabx54j3

"We further emphasize Alexander Hamilton’s assertion in Federalist Paper #68 that a core purpose of the Electoral College was to
prevent a “desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.”"

So, anybody bothering to pay to go to see a pantomime this year?

Off topic but

^@JeremyMcLellan
People always say #NeverAgain
but Aleppo shows that if the Holocaust had been live-tweeted the world would have sat by and watched.^

Comments about Aleppo on Twitter sicken me, literally sicken me.

I haven't noticed a link to this yet (Disclaimer: haven't been sleeping well so might have missed it). The House of Lords EU Committee'a report on post-Brexit trade is out.

Grauniad story here www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/13/uk-naive-to-expect-easy-ride-in-trade-talks-says-lords-report

One priceless quote: "But expert witnesses warned that all the options involved weighing up the economic benefits of trade against lost political independence, leaving no foreseeable scenario where Britain was in a stronger position outside the single market."

Actual report here
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/72/7202.htm

Russia is a busted flush, economy is broken and oil prices down regardless of that philistine 'www.democracynow.org/2016/12/12/could_massive_russian_oil_deal_with

China, on the other hand, you do not mess with. www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/13/china-state-media-warn-donald-trump-pride-goes-before-a-fall
More Beckett than Panto merry. Definitely The Lord of the Flies. We're cradling that beautiful fragile conch.

I'm not quite sure why this would be seen as a London problem, Olenna. As sad as it would be for institutions such as UCL and LSE, those employed by London universities could relatively easily find jobs elsewhere in the capital. Limiting student numbers would have a much greater effect on northern mill towns that rely on their local uni. Where I live, the local universities are major employers and any negative effect on them will result in significant job losses. Where will university workers in Huddersfield, hull, Bradford etc go to find work? It's crazy to me to threaten on of our few thriving industries.

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.

No it isn't, and a few minutes objective research would've told you that. It has become spectacularly difficult to sponsor 'granny' or any other elderly dependant relative over the past few years. Some useful information here, and please no complaints about the partiality of the source given that you linked to Migration Watch:

www.freemovement.org.uk/out-with-the-old/

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.

If this were the case, she could simply (even further) limit access for these 'lower level' courses. There's no way she doesn't know this. That she hasn't, and instead wants a broader brush approach, tells you that actually, it is about the students coming to Oxbridge.

Misti agree but not everyone would have just watched, those who did try to help humanitarian effort in Syria were imprisoned in britain on their return.

whatwouldrondo 'information about the Border agency van turning up at International House is personal experience'

I'm at institutions other than Oxbridge being dismissed as "lower level" which in pretty much any other context would be jumped on as rather, well, snobbish. As well as being categorically untrue.

FWIW, my personal experience of foreign students over several decades, was that the majority just wanted to pay their fees, study, get their qualifications and hope for a decent career - wherever in the world that might take them. The question one has to ask is whether the few overstayers or bad apples are so repugnant that we should tear down the whole tree to stop them.

As for the emotive squeam-raising spectre being flooded by hoards of lower-level relatives of these lower-level foreign students, well what can I say. It really is not easy to do this as BatPerson pointed out.

Signed, Oxbridge graduate, university academic and former overseas student who settled here (unfortunately as a singular hoard, minus grandparents, parents, siblings etc).

TES, Not in any way applying this to people on this thread, but MN in general has an unhealthy obsession with university status hierarchy.

I'd never heard of Russel Group or red brick etc until I came on mn.
To most of the non-university educated, university is university is university - Oxford & Cambridge being the exceptions.

Olenna Or you might only see that rents have gone up, the house next door is now a student let and keeps you up all night, the bus is full and you can't always get a seat, and the folk you bump into in the local shop don't seem to speak very good English so you don't think that they are genuinely here to study.

I would like to know what the source of this is too, other than your own stereotyping.

I have had a fair amount of direct experience of university in recent years, both as a student and visiting. I take the point about areas being taken over by student housing, local authorities have been slow to make sure student housing does not take over areas of traditionally low cost housing for other social groups in cities like Leeds, though in recent years they have. In places like York it has actually had a positive effect on the housing market. All universities I have visited except London have dedicated routes to universities creditors that are sustained by students. Whilst I would not embrace the racist stereotype of Chinese students sleeping every night in the library either, it does not tend to be the overseas students having loud parties every night, or indeed even moving to areas of low cost housing. Overseas students tend to prefer and be able to afford more salubrious accommodation.

As to not speaking English very well, as upheld by the courts , they do all have to pass a language test that is an effective test of English, so they can hold their own well enough to engage in seminars etc. I have yet to encounter an overseas student who did not speak good English.

Universities these days keep records of attendance and are concerned to ensure all their students are here to study so if they were not they would soon lose their right to remain.

They are also diverse. By far the largest group, over 20%, come from China, who do not seem to experience the everyday racism that other groups do, nor have I heard of them having quite such difficult experiences at the hands of the visa interviews. The countries sending the next largest groups, at around the 4% mark are as likely to be English speaking as not e.g. USA, Canada . The article highlights that the border agency makes it particularly difficult for students from India, which makes it hard not to interpret this not just as shooting ourselves in the foot economically for the sake of spinning statistics, and pandering to racism but also institutionalising it......

Not to defend Olenna's fundamentally inaccurate posts, but I read lower level as meaning below tertiary level. There've been substantial restrictions imposed on adult student visas for such courses in the past few years.

Misti I've been thinking the same re. Aleppo, I couldn't sleep last night thinking about it. So sad and frightening :(

Or you might only see that rents have gone up, the house next door is now a student let and keeps you up all night, the bus is full and you can't always get a seat,

As Olennas says, you might indeed find that in certain cities - I know it to be a fact in Sheffield since DS studied there. What you will find is that those are white British students who think that going away to University means party time. International students tend to be a bit older, and get their heads down and study. If anything, they miss out on the Social life.

As a result of these prejudices we are in serious danger of destroying our research base, which is a net earner for the country.