Westministenders: Johnson defends his President whilst we try to defend Britain

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa and Donald
Sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First come Brexit
Then comes the Ban
Then comes the
Removal of Human Rights
… Damn

(Shamelessly stolen from a protest sign)

A couple of weeks ago people were still asking why we were talking about Trump on a Brexit thread. I think the answer has made itself all together too apparent.

What is happening in the US is not going to stop. It’s not going to get any better any time soon. The situation is grave with suggestions there has been a coup. What happens next is not going to be pretty. American institutions are struggling. The rule of law has been undermined. We are not talking about a developing country. We are talking about the country which has stood for freedom and democracy.

Our leadership looks weak in the face of this. We look like we are not only appeasing but endorsing. For what? A trade deal that he could revoke in 30 days?

We have but one question. How many of our ‘British Values’ will have to be sacrifice for the special relationship?

Make no bones about this: Cosying up to Trump threatens our national security. It threatens our democracy. It ruins what little moral authority we have left. It threatens our ties with Europe who we DO still need to have a relationship even if we are outside the EU. This is not world leadership. This is appeasement. This is cowardly weak and downright desperate.

Let us also not forget ‘Good old Boris’ pretending to be Churchill and calling the EU Nazis and Hitler during the Referendum and on several occasions since. He has now had the bare faced audicity to stand in the House of Commons and call MPs out repeatedly for ‘trivalising the holocaust’ or for making comparisons with the 1930s when they saying they have been told this by survivors of the holocaust. It is SHAMEFUL. I also note how many times Johnson referred to Trump being democratically elected as if this makes all the difference and he can’t possibly be a dictator if elected.

Why do they want to use the parallel themselves and HATE it when its used for things they use? Fascists hate being pointed out as fascists.

What would happen if you put it to the public? You have a choice, The EU or Trump? What would they say. At its most basic this is what Brexit is now. You can not hide it or disguise it any longer.

Get used to this. Be prepared to protest, to keep challenging, to keep calling things as they are. Fatigue might set in, but we need to keep on. This is for the long haul.

Today the a50 Bill starts in parliament. It’s not looking good, as it looks like MPs will completely fail in their DUTY to hold the government to account and will not have the balls to add amendments to the bill.

If it passes without any, get worried. It is not just about the EU.

It never was.

Rather a profound downwards trend there in spending by everyone other than
Estonia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Norway
Poland
Romania

I notice the UK & US isn't in this list above.

But it's not spending 2% of GDP on NATO, it's spending it on defence, that's my point. Why would Luxembourg or Belgium spend the same proportion of their GDP on defence as the UK do prancing around the world making enemies and pretending we've still got an Empire?

That's okay Semi its one of the few things I did know for certain but Mothers link just taught me a whole lot more I didn't.

But Tuckers got a point in that if Luxembourg which has no airforce or navy was to go all out and spend that percentage then either it would have a really large army compared to its population or a really well paid one I suppose.

Defence is not just hardware though - it can also cover intelligence gathering, cyber warfare etc too.

True

Last post was to you Semi

maybe the donalds next move will be to say to luxenburg et al then if you are finding it a bit hard to spend your 2% but want to be protected by USA from being invaded by daish (sic) then send the dollar over to me...in used notes
for those hard of humour this is lighthearted. Even vacuous

All this is really speculation though until Trump actually publishes his military spending budget and the breakdown of that accordingly.

I mean he could say he wants an increase in spending which he does but the figures are massaged by increasing pension payments for example that would mean he kept his promise(hypotheical conjecture and no more at this point obviously).

EU will demand UK pays multi-billion euro bill for Brexit, says former UK ambassador to Brussels

steve hawkes ✔@steve_hawkes
Sir Ivan Rogers warnings about a "spine chilling" Hard Brexit is a gift to Tory rebels such as Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve

11:04 AM - 1 Feb 2017
Q: How legally binding are our financial obligations? If we don’t pay, will the EU take us to court?

Rogers says he does not know how EU figures have come up with the €40bn and €60bn figures. But he can guess, he says. It is based on EU liabilities. That would produce a figure for Britain to pay of between €25bn to €30bn. Then there are other components, like unfunded EU pensions liabilities.

But he said his private memo to May detailed the “street wisdom among the senior players” in Brussels and EU capitals, who thought trade negotiations would not start until late 2017 at the earliest and would not be concluded and ratified until the “early-mid 2020s”.He understands why people want Brexit now. But the issue is how to minimise the costs and disturbances.

You should look at what would happen sector by sector, he says. Look at aviation, or medicine, or pharmaceuticals.

He says a lot of single market access depends upon trade being certified by bodies that the UK will not recognise after Brexit. So access to the single market will automatically lapse without new agreements.

For example, medicines authorised by EU bodies will not be able to go on sale after Brexit without that authorisation.

If the UK walks away without a deal, and is reliant on WTO terms, you need to understand what that means.

@CharlieCooper8
Anyone who thought Rogers resigned because he's a starry-eyed Europhile should watch this committee. Hard-headed, unsentimental about EU

With the noble exception of Ken Clarke the vast majority of Tory MPs who voted Remain, in Remain constituencies can only offer 'the will of the people' as their reason for changing their minds. They seem to have collectively taken leave of their senses

I'm genuinely baffled. Do you think MP's should not honour the result of the referendum and instead do what they are told by the people (many not even their constituents) bombarding them with letters. Why?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38815817?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_daily_politics_and_sunday_politics&ns_source=facebook&ns_linkname=news_central

Bored

If Trump goes through with his tax drop on American business holdings outside of the US. (Reported to want to have a flat 10% rate on bringing back into the US foreign account holdings profits) then your joke may not be quite that far off the mark.

But that could possibly lead to a trade war (although I will admit that would probably be a bit one sided between the US and Luxembourg).

Rogers says after EU referendum Whitehall stopped focusing properly on day-to-day EU business

Rogers says other EU countries are trying to include things in EU directives now that they know will cause difficulty for the EU.

Whitehall has had a lot to do on Brexit, he says.

He says in the six months after the referendum he saw Whitehall paying less attention to day-to-day EU business. He has officials telling him they were getting no instructions from London about what position they should be taking on routine EU business.

He says he said that was not good enough. He told people in London that the government had to be able to “walk and chew gum” at the same time

Why?
exactly WrongTrouser

Q: How important is confidentiality?

Rogers says he thinks quite a lot of the negotiations will take place in public.

But that is not always ideal for negotiators, he says.

@theousherwood
Sir Ivan Rogers in front of MPs: "This is a negotiation on a scale we haven't experienced since WW2. It's going to be on a humongous scale."

The UK in a Changing Europe, an academic research project, and the Mile End Institute have conducted some research about the attitude MPs have to Brexit. They polled 101 MPs and then weighted them, by party, to make them representative of the Commons.

And the conclusions are perhaps not that surprising; that there are significant differences between the views of leave and remain MPs.

Here are some extracts from their news release.

Of leave MPs, 72% prioritise controlling immigration or not paying into the EU budget over retaining access to the single market. MPs who voted to remain in the EU, however, are more divided, with under half prioritising access to the single market over either immigration control or paying into the EU budget, with the rest taking a variety of different positions ...

A minority of MPs believe that the referendum result would not be honoured if Britain remained in the single market (just 26% think this would not honour the result) or continued to pay into the EU budget (35%). The latter contrasts with polling by Lord Ashcroft (in August) which found 81% of the public believed continuing to pay into the EU budget would not be compatible with leaving the EU.

MPs see controlling immigration from the EU as key – with 58% viewing it as a condition for respecting the referendum result. However, when it comes to EU nationals already living and working in the UK, MPs say that allowing them to stay is compatible with the referendum result – only 5% say this is incompatible with leaving the EU.

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1h ago
09:56
Pro-European Tories want more concessions from the government over the Brexit process, but they seem reluctant to commit themselves to voting with Labour when MPs debate detailed amendments to the article 50 bill next week. Here is an extract from a story in the Times today (paywall) about their thinking.

Pro-European Tory MPs have warned ministers that they expect to see parliament given a “meaningful vote” on the outcome of Britain’s Brexit negotiations before a deal is ratified in Europe ..

The government has said that it will give parliament a vote on the final deal but has made clear it would not represent a chance to veto Brexit or call another referendum. Privately, pro-European MPs do not believe this promise is meaningful but, having won a concession over the publication of a white paper, they do not want to be seen as disloyal by siding with the opposition amendments. However, they have made clear to the whips that they expect further concessions: a proper debate and vote in parliament before any deal is finalised is their key demand.

“They have banked the white paper and now is not the time to be seen to be disloyal by siding with Labour,” one source said. “There will be no rebellion but that does not mean that people have changed their views.”

The obvious problem with the approach as described here is that, unless they threaten to rebel, the pro-European Tories do not have any leverage they can use to get the government to offer more.
The former head of NHS Digital has said he was put under “immense pressure” by the Home Office under Theresa May to release data on immigrants despite his concerns over its legality, the Press Association reports.

Kingsley Manning said he was challenged for “daring” to question if there was a legal basis for handing over confidential patient data that would help the Home Office trace suspected illegal immigrants.

Last month, the Home Office published an agreement showing the basis by which information can be requested from NHS Digital.

But Manning said the NHS body has been forced to hand over data that the Home Office would find useful since “at least” 2005, sometimes to junior officials who would just “ring up” and ask for it. In an interview with the Health Service Journal (HSJ), Manning said:

We said to the Home Office: ‘We need to understand what the legal basis of this is.’

The Home Office response was: ‘How dare you even question our right to this information. This is data that belongs to the public. It is paid for by the taxpayer. We should use it for public policy’ ...

The Home Office view was that tracing illegal immigrants was a manifesto commitment. If I didn’t agree to co-operate [with the sharing of patient data] they would simply take the issue to Downing Street.

NHS, patient data compromised, US trade deal on NHS

BBC broadcast ends as Tory accuses Rogers of lying in his advice to Cameron.
To 5 minutes of blank screen?

I'm genuinely baffled. Do you think MP's should not honour the result of the referendum and instead do what they are told by the people (many not even their constituents) bombarding them with letters. Why?

I think they should represent their constituents and it's their duty to vote in accordance with what they think is for the good of the country. If they had reason to vote Remain before, then I would expect them to be able to reply to say that they have now changed their minds and list their reasons. I find it an extreme discourtesy that they seem unable to even reply.

If you are genuinely baffled and not just stirring, would you like to tell me where exactly on the ballot paper May's version of Brexit was laid out? If it had been been explained, and the country had voted for her particular interpretation of Brexit, that would be a different matter. May would have a genuine mandate. Do you think that the country should be dictated to by 40 or so hard-line Eurosceptic MPs, which is apparently the position now? If the will of the people is so important, why is it only their interpretation of the people's will the only one which seems valid?

BTW I only write to my own MP. Nor do I consider a dialogue which I have had with MPs over many years 'bombarding'. Prior to Brexit, my MPs , of more than one party, have usually been decent enough to send considered replies. Since then, I had one letter with stupid platitudes which didn't answer my questions, which prompted another to say, these were my questions, please answer, followed after a couple of months saying that I haven't had a reply. Plus some non related Brexit issues, which are important to the constituency which have also been ignored.

Wrong

I'm genuinely baffled. Do you think MP's should not honour the result of the referendum and instead do what they are told by the people (many not even their constituents) bombarding them with letters. Why?

As a remainer I wish I could say you are wrong here but you do have a point in that the referendum should be taken into account.

However I can also easily see the counter argument that we shouldn’t just pander to the largest voter demographic automatically without balance reasoning. Otherwise hangings would still occur in our criminal system, and look at James Hanratty in terms of how wrong that would be.

There is no 'easy' answer as a remainer I don't like Brexit but understand it should happen, but that doesn't mean I do not want parliamentary scrutiny and wouldn’t want us if possible to remain in the single trade agreement. Just my humble (if not long – sorry) opinion.

To go to NI questions in HOC.
Assurances for common travel area as part of trade deal needed.
How do you stop EU citizens travelling through Ireland to Britain?
Answer from Brokenshire: co operation apparently, working closely with Ireland on this, vague answers, no real acknowledgement of difficulty of assuring a soft border.
Will all parts of the Britain be treated equally asks DUP?
Questioning commitment to NI from Westminster, from DUP, troubles a coming from here.