Westministenders: Boris and The By-Elections

[RedToothBrush]

You lot post too fast!

A50 has made it out of the Commons without any amends. Its on its way to the Lords, but this week is half term, so in theory not much going on (in the UK at least). It hit the Lords on the 20th where it might not get such an easy ride. The Lords will not (and CAN NOT) stop brexit or frustrate it. But the numbers are in perhaps more favour of amendments if they choose to go that way, than the Commons. This would throw the bill back to the Commons. This is pretty reasonable.

In the meantime its 12 days to go until the Copeland and Stoke Central By-Elections.

Leave.Eu think UKIP have Stoke in the bag. They think there will be a 33% turnout. I think a turnout that high is the land of fantasy. Paul Nuttalls who was at Hillsborough is now a devout Stokie who has lived there all his life. Except of course he isn't.

Copeland looks like it will go Conservative. Its theirs to throw away. It would be the first victory for a sitting government in a by-election since 1983 if they make it. They intend to use a victory as another argument for a 'mandate'. But have they managed to drop a nuclear booboo?

One more Question. What are the chances of this thread making it to the 23rd?!

That was my typo peregrina, not yours

With the exception of the SNP members,parliament voted overwhelmingly
in favour of a referendum,now if you vote for something it behoves you to
think of the consequences.Clearly many MPs thought Remain would win.Representative democracy allows MPs to vote according to their views and face the ballot box on their voting record,but if they relinquish that right on a specific issue to a plebiscite it is dishonest to weasel out of it.Now I can understand certain MPs taking their constituency vote and voting in a way that reflects that vote on the grounds that their primary duty is to their constituents.The arrogance though of someone like Chris Bryant, who votes for a referendum,the country votes leave, his constituents vote for leave, his party tells him to vote leave but yet it is trumped by his breathtakingly sense of certainty that tells him to vote remain and politicians wonder why many don't trust them

Hear hear, Time. Well put.
Good to hear from Tiggy, always the voice of reason

In the few threads back talking about finding solutions in the reliance of foreign educated nurses/doctors by the NHS- the problem is, there is a global nursing shortage- USA, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, to name a few. So effectively UK is also competing to get an educated talent poo, from overseas.

The government's solution is to expand a lower qualified form of nursing- such as nursing associates and care assistants. A registered nurse will be responsible for more and more patients (12-14 patients for 1 RN)However, evidence shows the high RN patient ratio, the higher the mortality. (California and Australia are looking into 1 RN for 4 patients). Evidence also shows that the less degree educated nurses there are in a ward, the higher the mortality.

The next 10-20 years would be very tough for the NHS as age and co- morbidities of the baby boomers will start kicking in.

This radio 4 programme is not just about brexit but the demography shift in the world www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086t0mb

you challenge the policy not the way in which people voted. If people are leave or remain is only relevant to a point.

RTB, I understand what you mean by this but the frustration comes from the fact Leavers are simply unwilling to do this.

From what I've seen, they are quite happy to 'roll with the punches' and essentially it seems that anything and everything is ok with them as long as we will end up officially outside the EU.

rtb sadly that's true of where I've lived and voted too.

A few GEs back I did vote for someone largely because the two main strong candidates were both nasty arseholes options I couldn't feel right backing, though there was no way sadly the next best option was going to get in.

With parties the way they are now it sometimes feels like its anyone's guess as to what will happen where.

competing to get an educated talent poo
that is probably my favourite typo for a while

The government's solution is to expand a lower qualified form of nursing- such as nursing associates and care assistants.

Indeed, at one time they had a lower rank of nurses, called State Enrolled Nurses, but they phased that qualification out, and those SENs were able to top up their qualification to become a fully qualified nurse.

How does that square with my MP then?

He's Conservative. The area is heavily dependent on the EU (one of the most dependent in the country) for business.

The count was done over a wider area and came out for Leave. But the constituency he represents is most definitely Remain (people were at the count purely to work this out though nothing is official to verify this).

He was Remain.

I know a few people who know the MP well. He was always very firmly remain and to go against that is to go against his principles. He has done a hell of a lot to campaign for business to come to the area and has been very successful in doing so.

Ironically one big promise he made to the area has just been firmly shat on by Tory High Command. It will bite him on the bum badly come next election.

The rumours have already been around for some time he doesn't intend to stand again at the next General Election.

Which does make you wonder, what incentive exactly is there for him to suddenly become a Leaver?

In terms of self interest, he would be well remembers locally for being a Tory with a back bone and stood up for the town's interests.

On the face of it, its hard to work out.

Oh yes, I got it. He's currently a junior minister...

Personally FWIW I think Chris Bryant, is a slightly different case being in Wales. There are additional issues with Brexit that impact on Wales differently that should come into this.

But that aside I think he IS doing what Churchill says MPs should do, in voting on the basis of the National Interest ahead of Constituency opinion and the party line. No one would criticise Churchill on this these days. Churchill is still held in the highest regard.

I think you have to ask another question: What has changed to undermine MPs and their freedom to vote with conscious?

It worked in the past. Why doesn't it work today in the same way?

I think its perhaps because politics has attracted the 'wrong' type of person for a long time and people who have earned and got reputations to serve their communities first or have a special interest for which they fight very hard for are few and far between.

Why is it that the single biggest issue about Tristram Hunt and Paul Nuttalls has been more or less the same thing: "He's not from round here". Why has it been this thing about the 'Westminster Bubble' across the board regardless of party?

RTB, I understand what you mean by this but the frustration comes from the fact Leavers are simply unwilling to do this.

And acting the same way is going to help the matter?
It doesn't help anyone. It just reinforces the same old shit rather than breaking the cycle.

Its not that I don't get the frustration. I just think that it has to be more measured in how its expressed and directly confronting people and demanding they explain their position is a turn off.

Leave won in part, because it empowered Leavers to form political opinions of their own rather than this notion of being 'told what to do' by the EU or by the 'elite'. The elite is not the elite, but rather the middle classes in the eyes of many of this group. Its a class war thing.

Displaying this difference in education is viewed as arrogance rather than engaging. We have to take intelligent conversation to everyone and treat them as capable to understand and contribute and encourage them - rather than demand - they do, on their own terms. Because many ARE intelligent and capable of doing so, but have been directed to arguments which make perfect sense but have very flawed logic, which is hidden deep in the small print that no one reads. (Example: Foreigners should pay for care on the NHS as they have not put in contributions to pay for it is a reasonable point and argument. Makes perfect sense to me. Its not until you start looking at the figures involved, the trouble is that enforcing this will cost more than it will return and it will undermine trust between doctors and patients and end up with discrimination in the NHS that the idea starts to look like a donkey).

This is NOT an easy task. The dynamic is against people from more privileged positions, as it perhaps will always feel to some as if they are being talked down to.

However somehow, we need to get the message across in a sincere way, that not everyone thinks like that and actually they do have best interests of everyone at heart - not just themselves, or people like themselves, but also people who are not like them and don't have the same privileges of circumstance.

I don't get it right all the time myself. I will admit that. However I do get the overall problem here.

Going on the attack doesn't always serve the purpose. Right now, we need to find allies and to find common ground, of which there is some and to get across our fears better. I think the economic one is harder at the moment, but the one about democracy certainly is one that people across the board can get and are all frustrated with and is being emphasised by the Trump effect.

I don't really understand keep going over and over again what motivated someone to vote as they did 7 months ago. For good or for ill, Parliament took that outcome and chose (overwhelmingly) to go with it which politically, if not legally, was the only option they ever had anyway.

For the same reason that historians are still analysing why people supported Pétain, Franco, Mussolini etc, and the methods by which their supporters were manipulated.

In future historians will be analysing the appeal of the Brexit/Trump illusion, the deception of the population, the breakdown of the democratic process immediately post-Brexit, and why MPs rolled and allowed it to happen.

So you might as well get used to it.

Going back to Stoke, I think that large parts of the press is treating Stokkies as stupid racists. Equally I think that UKIP themselves are treating Stokkies as stupid racists. Labour are in effect doing the same, just in a different way.

For the most part, they aren't. There are a lot who are, for sure, but tarring everyone the same way doesn't help. Words that are offensive to many of us, were not regarded in the same way in the 1950s - 1970s and that's how you have to view use of these words by some as being ignorant and of another time rather than out and out racist.

And there are plenty of Leavers in Stoke who will not be of that mindset anyway.

DH is from the area. He points out that it is also a very Stokkie thing of not liking being told that they are x, y or z and they might rebel against all expectations as a result.

I'm not sure I share his thoughts on the subject to the same degree, but certainly I do think the general attitude that has been displayed to voters by politicians and press over Stoke is poor and not improving.

Sorry to hop back to a topic, but Tinternet stopped me posting during our v important NI discussion:

It seems that May as PM of the United Kingdom, is using the NI population, part of the UK, as hostages.
She apparently believes that the EU will place a higher value on peace in NI than she as PM does.

It is her responsibility as PM not to take actions that would particulalrly harm one of the Uk countries; it is not the responsibility of the EU or of the rest of the world to do so.
If the rest of the world won't give preferential deals to the UK in the timscale she wants, is that their fault, or May's for insisting on her particular form of Brexit ?

The GFA relied on the fact that both the UK and NI were in the EU when defining conditions the Uk was required to fulfill.
It is May who unilaterally plans to change this situation, without agreement of the NI nationalists or the RoI.

Sinn Fein are not just going to accept unilateral changes to the GFA - Gerry Adams has warned May is destroying the GFA:

“The British Prime Minister repeated her intention to bring an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court.
Along with her commitment to remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights this stand threatens to undermine the fundamental human rights elements of the Good Friday Agreement.”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-northern-irealand-gerry-adams-sinn-fein-good-friday-agreement-peace-eu-a7539011.html

So is National Interest best served by ignoring the referendum result
No, but then at the same time the National Interest is not being best served by flinging into something with little or no preparation.

Most voices on here aren't arguing that the UK should now not look at leaving the EU. They're voicing their dissent at the speed apparently required, the policies apparently being followed and the lack of forethought that is being put into it.

So is National Interest best served by ignoring the referendum result, throwing the country into political chaos that will return a staunchly Brexit Tory majority and destroy the Labour party overnight? Is it best served by playing a 10 year game of Brexit to-ing and fro-ing with our nearest partners and allies (we're in, we're out, we're back in again...oh no, new government means we're out again)? Because it is just not realistic to pretend that somehow the Commons last week could have voted down Brexit and then...nothing. All back to normal.

No. Its also not served by throwing us off a cliff and doing everything possible to silence the concerns of people either.

Where is half way house and where is the moderate language?

Where is the reassurance?

And where the fuck is the £350 million promise?

Or should I say, in a less confrontational manner, a outward and concrete commitment to the NHS which so many wanted, rather than it taking weeks to drag it out of Jeremy Hunt that the NHS is in crisis much less get something else out of the government?

People want some more honesty in politics.

Its wasn't there pre-referendum. Its there even less now.

Understanding the Referendum vote, is not just about what people voted for and rejected in terms of the EU.

The government are keen to say, we are not having a pick and mix Brexit, where we keep certain things but not others, but by the same token, they have picked the messages they most want to pursue and rejected others.

The lack of debate over what next is the biggest issue that has happened over the last couple of weeks. A few more hours of debating time would not have hurt the government would it?

I would suggest that NI at least remains within the EEA
That could be a solution to negotiate with the EU - they've indicated they would be flexible about NI, but won't let May use it to force her cake deal for the whole UK.

We need a transition period in EEA / EFTA
That would give time to build UK infrastructure - ports, road & rail links, civil service depts etc - to handle a WTO Brexit
Within EFTA, the UK would be able to negotiate (bilateral) trade deals with countries in the rest of the world.
That would smooth the transition to WTO later

Possibly the negotiations with the EU would indeed focus on a transition period, with the UK trying to keep all its cake, including financial passporting, but drop FOM.