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…

To be fair, I think bored just made an honest mistake - she saw my facetious proposal to appease Brexiteers, and just misinterpreted it rather dramatically, but she did acknowledge pretty much straight away that she had misunderstood.

You're the only one pretending here semi.

www.insurancebusinessmag.com/uk/news/breaking-news/arron-banks-political-spending-revealed-36977.aspx Arron Banks’ political spending revealed

Someone makes a nazi allegory then they should get called out for it.

You made the Nazi allegory.
No one else.
You.

"It was about handing medals out to Leavers to make them feel special about winning.

Don't pretend it was something sinister when it wasn't."

Sinister? Why? What's sinister about a gold star? #derailing.

I made the call out. If there was nothing remotely to call out then it wouldn't be possible.

Sinister? Why? What's sinister about a gold star? #derailing.

Hashi decided that it was Bored invoking past Nazi actions.

It's strange - when Boris Johnson makes references to the EU/Nazis/Hitler in the same breath that's just one of his little jokes. When the other side mention Hitler in Parliament, he gets extremely rattled.

Hashi, you 'called out' fuck all.

You made an inference that was t there, and then 'called out' a poster on something that you had made up.

We lost the vote so we lost the right to pick people upon their lazy allegories too apparently.

On a more on topic note did anyone catch who the mp was on BBC breakfast talking about wanting parliament to be able to scrutinise negotiations as they happen and not be presented with a fait acomplis

Didn't see Breakfast Time, but I do wish MPs would wake up and see what they are sleepwalking into.

My few friends at the Freedom Associaton ere advocating more links, like this and Priti is one of their parliamentarians of the week: www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/03/uk-fund-scheme-refugees-move-asia-latin-america

WRT links between SWP with UKIP, off we go.

We lost the vote so we lost the right to pick people upon their lazy allegories too apparently.

What allegory?
Not an allegory at all, lazy or otherwise.

And I couldn't care less how you voted.

You inferred something that wasn't there, and ran with it.

That's all that happened.

I wish I'd suggested a certificate instead of a medal now.

gisforGirl
And Kate Joey. It looks more and more like she is basically on the ukip pay roll. Keep digging. If she is others are likely too." that is extremely worrying. Conservative MPs being 'sponsored' bribed by Banks? I hadn't considered that possibility. Is this even likely?
Kate Hoey is actually a Labour MP. Or so she says.

Me and several others

Whoever he was spoke a lot of sense. Which took me by surprise!

Kaija, I would prefer a medal tbh - I can at least wear it & be show-offy.
A certificate would just be on the toilet wall or similar.,,

Women's Equality Party amendment to protect women's rights. (the one that helped organise the biggest international women's protests on record) seen)www.womensequality.org.uk/brexit_amendment

Great, semi, have a medal and a blue passport. Will that do you?

I propose a medal in the shape of a cat's bum.

Maybe a polite cat's bum. Instead of y'know. MNers will still understand.

woman the women's equality party are great, do you know if they are associated with Labour? I seem to remember they supported the LD campaign in the Richmond by-election (as did the Greens).

Love it elements

It was John McDonnell. Seems on message with other stuff he's said previously

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-labour-and-tory-mps-unite-to-launch-campaign-to-pull-britain-out-of-the-eu-10331130.html
The group includes three veteran Labour MPs - Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins and Graham Stringer.

Looking at Dorset UKIP's page, where Kelvin Hopkins is mentioned, noticed unusual methods of disseminating information to avoid the biased press. Legal eagles needed here, but if one is running for public office, is there note a mandatory level of transparency in the political party aiming for power?

^How can you help us?
We will contact you if you are a UKIP member. It need not be demanding. You need either a telephone or a computer. We give you the contact details for 5 people with whom you are or can be in contact. You can also select a 6th person who is a friend and non-member of UKIP [however there need be no limit to the number of non-members to whom you can include in your mailing list]. Every so often we send you some information which you can send on to these six [+] people using Bcc for confidentiality. You ask them in turn to send this information onto another 5 people [probably not UKIP members] and those new five then do the same, and so on. This way we will soon be communicating with a vast and growing number across the country. This is a fast and efficient method of passing urgent information to the public as a whole, and in doing so we bypass the biased UK media^

And this is all very out of date, but a flavour of what is to come:
www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/meet-next-tory-mps-who-4629504

I'm still trying to get my head round this donation from Arron Banks to Kate Hoey coming on top of the news of Labour Leave's donation to UKIP. What is going on here? Presumably as an MP she has to declare this somewhere and say what it was used for? Has she done this?

Is it the case that Banks was funnelling his donations through members of Labour Leave (and other groups presumably) to get round the cap on campaign spending somehow?