Westministenders: Boris and his friends hand in their homework to be marked.

[RedToothBrush]

The last week has been depressing for a lot of people.

Even if you are happy about the vote in the Commons, there is a worrying lack of backbone in MPs of all shades.

Then there’s what is going on in the USA which I’m going to quietly ignore in this post except to say that cosying up to Trump still could backfire on all who do for numerous reasons.

It seems like its all over in someways, but there is still plenty going on.

The A50 Bill has only passed stage one. The Government’s deliberate publishing of the White Paper after the vote has left a lot of people with egg all over their face.

Plus its just crap. Actually its not crap. It’s a dog dinner of farcical proportions with no content, faulty data and incorrect details that an A-Level Student did the night before their assignment was due, masquerading as an official government document.

Now its amendment time, which is the serious bit. For an amendment to make it, it will need cross party support. After the government failed to produce a White Paper worth the paper it was written on, and insulted the intelligence of the House of Commons, that could get interesting.

For starters the White Paper says that EU citizens are one of our best bargaining chips. Trouble is a lot of Tory and Labour MPs don’t agree.

In short there is a fair old chance of a government defeat next week at some point. The government don’t want any. Especially not this early. I really think it will be very difficult for the government to provide the assurance MPs will want, even if they crack the whip. They have lost the trust of too many. In voting for the first vote, many MPs will feel they have shown their intent to support leaving and now will get busy on trying to hammer down the details.

Highlights include of the White Paper include the idea that we will still be subject to the ECJ except we won’t. This is ridiculous. We will be subject to ECJ rulings but not be subject to ECJ rulings directly. Eh? What? (Not that we didn’t see this coming). There’s Euroatom and the government doing an impression of Homer Simpson. With a by-election in Copeland on the cards. That story has some time to keep running. As Steve Peers points out, the Leprechauns are going to sort out Northern Ireland for us which is a great political strategy to employ.

Its full of lots of other utter bollocks but those particular points are the ones that are potentially the most problematic for the government. If you don’t think the White Paper screams we are going to get eaten alive by the EU and Trump, you need to get off the hallucinogenics pronto.

If that isn’t awe inspiring enough we also have:

The wonderful mental image of Paul Nuttall kipping on a mattress in a house in Stoke disparately pretending to be a Stokie, nervously hoping that letterbox rattling in the wind isn’t C4 letterbox again and that the coppers don’t pay him a visit in the near future. I confess that whilst my imagination has been kept busy with this, I am disappointed in the lack of video clips of him munching on an Oatcake in a Stoke City shirt, sitting on an Armitage Shanks throne, turning his plate over whilst listening to Robbie Williams and with a Titanic by his side. All at the same time. I think he’s missed a few tricks.

AND

Diane Abbott doing quite possibly even more damage to Labour than them merely rolling over and dying over a50 by pulling a sickie. Her ‘Brexit Flu’ damages the party’s image and Corbyn himself even more. If that’s even possible. Some Labour MPs have demanded an apology.

Labour is starting to look like it’s a ship with rats fleeing this week. MPs have defied a three line whip and quite the Shadow Cabinet (Again). Rumours are that over 7000 members have left. A councillor has defected to the Lib Dems. There was a council by election in Rotherham where Lab lost a seat to the LDs in an area where there has never been as many people vote LD. Nor were there as many remain voters as LD voters. The Parliamentary vote for Unite’s new leader has unsurprisingly selected the anti-Corbyn candidate Gerald Coyne over Len McCluskey. The bookies have dropped the odds on Corbyn leaving Labour before a GE from 6/1 to 2/1 overnight. Oh and Red Ed is being rumoured to be returning to the front bench…

Apologies: I meant Barnier's type being good at maths not May and Co.😄

Evidemment!

I can't see how the position with the rest of the EU can be repaired now. I think we will need to wait until the present generation of politicians have gone from the scene, and the current late teens and early 20s start to go into politics. Which means we are looking at 20 years or so, but it's almost impossible to predict what the world will be like then.

Melissa Mc Carthy as a mad Spicer
Bring back Spitting Image! We need satire more than ever!

Jamie It's not as simple as just jumping out of EU and straight into the WTO
I posted this on the last thread

WTO: Horrendously Complex

"Tariff rate quotas are a nightmare. They are the one part of the WTO arrangement that Britain can't replicate, or seek to join, or copy and paste into existence. They require very careful calculations."

"And here's the rub: every country in the export quota list ... can launch litigation against the UK if it does not approve of the quota we put down."

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2016/12/15/if-liam-fox-messes-up-we-re-all-in-deep-trouble

"The potential for multiple trade disputes is vast .... There are countless quotas, from meat of bovine animals, to citrus hybrids, to mushrooms, to countless varieties of cheese.

And these are complex !
You've got quota rates for whole Cheddar cheeses "of the conventional flat cylindrical shape of a net weight of not less than 33kg but not more than 44kg
and cheeses of the conventional flat cylindrical shape or cheeses in parallelepiped shape, of a net weight of 10 kg or more", which must have "a minimum fat content of 50% by weight in the dry matter, matured for at least three months".

You've got 'edible offal of bovine animals' rates for "pasture-grazed animals, aged between 22 and 24 months, having two permanent incisors and presenting a slaughter liveweight not exceeding 460 kg".

Living in Germany, listening to politicians here, I can say there is great sympathy for UK citizens who wish to retain freedom to live in the E27.
Hence the support for a genuinely "special" UK deal on that only.

However, there is total astonishment and contempt at UK politicians for not having a plan and for being so ignorant about what is involved in A50, WTO, international trade deals, non-tariff barriers etc
Voters aren't expected to know such things, but professional politicians, at least at Cabinet level, should.

There is no interest whatsoever in forcing an unwilling UK to remain or inventing a special deal to enable them to do so.
The EU only wants the UK as a willing partner.
Anything less would bring far too much grief.

That is why I think it would take a real disaster for the E27 to unanimously agree to revoke A50.

Here's Stewart Lee bringing a little joy to the heart:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/05/brexit-donald-trump-trade-deal-bendy-bananas-stewart-lee?utmcontent=bufferf7814&utmmmedium=social&utmsource=twitter.com&utmmcampaign=buffer

Lord Kerr's comments echo Ivan Rogers' earlier comments to a certain extent, though Kerr is more focused on the rug being pulled out from under the feet of civil society and the whole constitutional framework thanks to open disrespect for the rule of law.

Not sure if this will link or be paywall blocked.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/02/05/sterling-may-become-swiss-franc-steroids/

May's plan isn't in the white paper. There is nothing of substance in the white paper. This is entirely the point. This is one of those occasions where what's not being said is more important than what been said. All these things that they refuse to rule out or can't comment on because it would undermine their position? Jeremy Hunt just happens to go to NY? The right wing talks of taking away rights. All this business where the PM refused to condemn the courts being undermined...

It's what is unspoken and we know to be the plan that we should talk about. The white paper was a device to humiliate and destroy opposition. It worked.

Tonight Trump has tweeted again more less willing an attack so the judge can be blamed. Enemies of the people. he said he wanted more hacking. He got it. Who would argue against that attack.

May's tactics are similar but not as brash. She does the same things. In polite fashion.

Things that would be challenged more if she were a man I might add. A woman couldn't possibly be the one to end the NHS nor remove workers and minority rights.

Women Can be trusted more over certain issues than man. Can't they?

oops, paywall blocked me.
I thought Leavers were saying the pound dropping was good for exports and that the pound had been overvalued for years ?
Exporters will tend to prefer the pound to stay low (depending on what % raw materials & components they import) whereas consumers will dislike higher prices.
imo, the pound would soar in 2019 with a soft EEA / EFTA Brexit, but would fall further with WTO / failed WTO.

I agree - or maybe hope ! - that the pound won't keep jumping up & down everytime the PM or the 3 Brexiteers open their mouths. Traders may switch it all off as just noise.

BoredPup is beautiful & totally adorable < sends kisses & strokes to pup >

thank you bcf and sorry you cant read article as its q interesting - I can copy and paste but its v long?

also, howabout posted another interesting article on the other thread, p23 I think

Here is is...rivally RTBs lengthy posts!

Bank of America has advised clients to prepare for a major rebound in sterling as markets become inured to each breathless twist in the Brexit saga, and focus instead on the underlying resilience of the UK economy.
The bank’s currency team said there may be one last leg down for the pound afterArticle 50 is triggered in March, probably hitting a three-decade low of $1.15 against the dollar before charging back up in V-shaped recovery later this year.
“The pound looks cheap. We think the start of the countdown to Brexit may prove to be the low and the opportunity to enter sterling longs (positions),” said strategists Athanasios Vamvakidis and Kamal Sharma.
“We have no doubt that many political hurdles lay ahead for the pound in the years ahead, but we doubt that the markets will be in a perpetual state of panic over every Brexit-related headline,” they said.
Sterling is likely to climb back up towards its post-Brexit ‘equilibrium level’ of $1.35 to the dollar, and could possibly $1.40, provided common sense prevails and Britain secures a transition deal with the EU to avert a cliff-edge shock for bilateral trade.
Bank of America said the markets have essentially priced in a ‘hard Brexit’ already. The pound would normally be “much stronger” based on the differences in interest rates and two-year bond yields that tend to drive currency markets.
The real effective exchange rate (REER) is almost 20pc below its long-run average and now matches the historic lows seen at the depth of the global financial crisis.
Robust job growth and a firm housing market may ultimately force the Bank of England to tighten monetary policy. Manufacturing is holding up. Crucially, sterling is highly-geared to the global trade cycle and Bank of America argues that this is at last recovering.
Robust job growth and a firm housing market may ultimately force the Bank of England to tighten monetary policy. Manufacturing is holding up. Crucially, sterling is highly-geared to the global trade cycle and Bank of America argues that this is at last recovering.

Views in the City are starkly divided on the future of sterling, just as they are on the larger issue of Britain’s economic destiny as a global trading nation. Butthe view from America and Asia is broadly more positive than the hand-wringing jeremiads of Europeans caught in a cultural cycle of pessimism.

Stephen Jen from Eurizon SLJ Capital, a Taiwanese adviser to sovereign wealth funds in Asia and the Middle East, said Britain is ahead of the curve in understanding the shifts in the global economy.
The current narrative over Brexit will be overtaken by events as Europe’s own woes become clearer, and withdrawal from the dysfunctional bloc will ultimately be seen as a shrewd move.
“Britain has a fantastic culture and economy. It is leading the world in reform over the next generation andit is going to thrive. I think sterling will end up being the Swiss franc on steroids,” he said.
“What is extraordinary is that Britain and America have seen the best growth rates since in the global financial crisis yet they are the ones going through a political revolution. What they have understood is globalisation is a tussle between the owners of labour, the owners of capital, and the owners of technology, and they facing up to this first,” he said.
Deutsche Bank and UBS are at the other extreme, forecasting sterling at ornear parity with the euro this year as negotiations turn tetchy and companies start to move operations abroad.
This is a brave hypothesis given the populist revolt sweeping large parts of Europe - and above all Italy - and given the risk of a fresh default crisis in Greece just before the German elections. While it is unlikely that Holland’s Geert Wilders, France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Beppe Grillo will take power this year, they may do well enough to shift the political centre of gravity in unpredictable ways.Bank of America said the term ‘hard Brexit’ is losing its meaning, with the picture better described as a ‘clean Brexit’ with a comprehensive trade agreement that preserves a high degree of open commerce in the interests of both sides.
Much can still go wrong. Sterling would crash to $1.10 - and stay there - if Brexit talks end in a nasty divorce, with a retreat to World Trade Organisation tariffs, poisoned by arguments over an alimony settlement pitched at €60bn by some in Brussels. “If the UK gets a bad deal, the worst for the economy may still be ahead,” they said.
Interestingly, Bank of America has a warning for the EU side if it pushes for an extremely hard bargain. As a matter of pure politics, it would be easier for the UK government to walk to away from a punitive deal and blame the debacle on European intransigence.
Britain would suffer the hardest hit in strict trading terms. But nation states are institutionally resilient.
The eurozone would suffer less on paper, but the bloc’s fragile monetary structure and half-formed polity leaves it acutely vulnerable to any stress. The asymmetry of pain is very hard to estimate.

Deciding to Leave without a plan, in the hope of a better future, is not the same as the situation in which Jamie* iirc decided to go to uni in the hope of a better job:

The comparable situation is deciding to go to uni this year when you don't know what subject to study, even whether to go for the humanities or STEM and more importantly, being totally unprepared academically because you haven't studied any subjects at GCSE level or equivalent.

Thanks, Bored
That article is from a clearly anti-EU perspective, from a particular rightwing section of the US financial industry, that we know all too well - most of whom welcome Trump's rollback of financial regulations that I warned about upthread.

The reason for their hatred is that the EU are regulating the European financial market and forcing multinationals to pay tax, whereas the same sort of gungho cowboys who caused the 2008 crash are again determined to destroy all regulation anywhere that gets in the way of their wild financial schemes.
Trump & the financial cowboys want to gamble again, in the knowledge they can force us to bail out the system if it goes wrong again.
With Trump on their side, I am seriously worried about another international financial crash

They are also greeting the rise of the far right as a "populist revolt"
It is perverse, coming from the most corrupt elite who cost ordinary people so much in 2008 and want freedom to do the same again.
These shady oligarchs in the US and UK are funding the far right, such as Le Pen, both directly and with a massive social media & psychometric assault.

However, even this article seems to agree with us that the pound and the UK economy depend on the type of Brexit:

"provided common sense prevails and Britain secures a transition deal with the EU to avert a cliff-edge shock for bilateral trade"
Yes, we've been saying here that we at least need a transition deal, but many Leavers demand Brexit in 2 years, no delay.

"Much can still go wrong. Sterling would crash to $1.10 - and stay there - if Brexit talks end in a nasty divorce, with a retreat to World Trade Organisation tariffs"
which is why Remainers - and some Leavers who are being hammered by their own side - are so anxious not to have a WTO Brexit

May probably agrees with them that she can blame even the worst case WTO exit on the EU - and enough UK voters will believe her at the next GE
Which is why many believe she would choose that option, rather than a softer one that would be better for the economy but would require a politically damaging compromise.

Back to 2008 ?

Bernie Sanders said Sunday that Trump is "a fraud" and is working with Wall Street to roll back banking regulations:

www.politico.com/story/2017/02/sanders-trump-is-a-fraud-234662

This is why dodgy Wall St support Trump

www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/from-drain-the-swamp-to-government-sachs

"For big trading houses like Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan, the regulatory regime is a key driver of profitability. In the past six years, higher capital requirements and other restrictions introduced as part of Dodd-Frank helped drive down some banks’ return on equity—a measure of their profitability—by more than half

Partly in anticipation of upcoming regulatory relief, bank stocks have been rising sharply since the election."

"Indeed, Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Center for American Progress, has calculated that five financial stocks account for more than forty per cent of the rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since November 8th.
The jump in Goldman’s stock alone accounts for a quarter of the overall rise."

Stewart Lee...funny and as depressingly spot on as ususal

rollback of financial regulations that I warned about upthread
Frank Dodds repeal to smash financial legislation, if you thought 2008 was bad.................

Woman, the spicer video is hilarious!

Headfull have you seen this one?
And today, May's mate is provoking constitutional crisis, potentially worse.
Where are the British firms protesting against government racism?
www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/donald-trump-budweiser-boycott-immigration-super-bowl-advert-a7560941.html

Lico although le Pen speaks English one funny thought is that of the English and American fascists trying to communicate with their European counterparts in any other language than their own shouty debased version of their of their native tongue.

Farage's wife must be having a street party today!
l

BigChoc and to continue your analogy, giving up your job and house to go to university before you know they will let you in and if there is going to be subsidy available

....and complaining about the course before you've even started it and saying they should develop one just for you because you know better

97 US businesses unite against racist ban. Silence from British ones. remember Volkswagen, Siemens etc?
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/donald-trump-apple-zynga-facebook-google-uber-intel-netflix-file-legal-brief-against-immigration-a7564501.html