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?!

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-uk-visit-theresa-may-john-bercow-parliament-president-state-a7577126.html

It looks like the government is still trying to make that visit happen - but is struggling.....

Flynn Resignation

"The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States

and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said."

"although they believed that Pence was misled about the contents of Flynn’s communications with the Russian ambassador,
they couldn’t rule out that Flynn was acting with the knowledge of others in the transition."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/justice-department-warned-white-house-that-flynn-could-be-vulnerable-to-russian-blackmail-officials-say/2017/02/13/fc5dab88-f228-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401story.html?utmm_term=.5ce4772dc2f5

"the upheaval inside the administration that West Wing officials had optimistically dismissed as growing pains is now embedding itself as standard operating procedure"

Senior Republican strategist from Dubya WH:
“None of this is normal. The incompetence, the sloppiness and the leaking is unprecedented.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/upheaval-is-now-standard-operating-procedure-inside-the-white-house/2017/02/13/d65dee58-f213-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fcstory.html?utmm_term=.8c83b9ef3f9d

Interesting: "Lawmakers are comfortable with Vice President Pence"
He's hard religious right, but sane wrt foreign affairs, immigration etc Not a Leninist.
Equally shit for USA women, but passes the abysmal benchmark of not likely to wreck the rest of the world.

The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Prevent Donald Trump from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.”.

Government responded:

HM Government believes the President of the United States should be extended the full courtesy of a State Visit. We look forward to welcoming President Trump once dates and arrangements are finalised.

HM Government recognises the strong views expressed by the many signatories of this petition, but does not support this petition.

During her visit to the United States on 27 January 2017, the Prime Minister, on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, invited President Trump for a State Visit to the UK later this year. The invitation was accepted. This invitation reflects the importance of the relationship between the United States of America and the United Kingdom. At this stage, final dates have not yet been agreed for the State Visit.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Short version: Fuck off with your Will of The People when it suits us.

www.ft.com/content/a62b292a-ef99-11e6-930f-061b01e23655
Gibraltar poses threat to post-Brexit aviation access
Spain signals it would block EU air access deal unless terms exclude Gibraltar airport

“A deal that is applicable to the airport of Gibraltar would imply recognition of the legal right of the UK to the territory.”

Uh oh

Re Flynn. Others involved. Reason he's gone is to protect others. Congress needs to investigate. They need kicking to make sure they do they. Too many Republicans reluctant to take the mud...

Atm there is no border control between ireland and other eu states. Allowing movement between ROI and NI would also mean allowing people from NI to be able to go in Europe wo controls.

This isn't correct. ROI is not in Schenghen, so there are border controls when arriving in the ROI from the Schenghen zone, and when moving from the ROI into Schengen.

I think the issue of movement of people between the ROI and NI should be relatively easy to resolve, not least because (outside tourist season) the vast majority of movements will be of Irish residents most of whom have the right to an EU citizenship. So for the EU, this is a relatively manageable issue, while for the UK, it's plainly desirable to maintain FOM for Irish citizens because so many people cross the border for work and business, and because stopping FOM would be explosive in terms of the GFA.

OTOH, the movement of goods and in particular food and animals poses a much, much larger problem that could be catastrophic for the NI economy. And deprivation and joblessness are a gift for extremists wanting to recruit young people to their cause.

Oh and Flynn is not the first close associate of Trump to go because of Russian ties. Trump's Campaign manager Manafort went for not dissimilar reasons.

A nasty spat between that may have revealed something worrying for US journalists:

"During their altercation, Ryan said Manigault told her that she was among several African American journalists who were the subject of White House dossiers.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/journalist-says-omarosa-manigault-bullied-her-and-mentioned-a-dossier-on-her/2017/02/13/d852926e-f131-11e6-8d72-263470bf0401story.html?utmm_term=.d0272ee336d7

Short version: Fuck off with your Will of The People when it suits us.

Gibraltar. Yet another territory completely forgotten in the campaigns and further still now

Jennifer Williams @JenWilliamsMEN
Watching Gareth Snell's Twitter get ripped apart tells you as much about how much the machine has deteriorated as it does about Gareth Snell

This^

Snell's Twitter account is a side show of horrors if you are Labour.

DH's comment last night. It's almost like they are so afraid of losing in Stoke that they put up a shit candidate so if they loose they can blame him personally.

www.sdlp.ie/news/2017/eastwood-vote-for-change-and-transfer-for-change/

That means voting down the ticket and it does mean voting cross-community.

SDLP pitching for cross community votes as NI assembly vote is down to preferences.

It's pretty significant to even ask that

There's been quite a lot of comments re a return to terrorist activity - in particular bombing London.

For what end?

Is it for a united Ireland?
Is it to force UK into remaining part of EU?
Is it just to achieve the ruination of UK?

In what way would a return to terrorism further the future or success of Ireland & NI?

Should WM not pursue Brexit because of the (very real) threats of violence?

Short version: Fuck off with your Will of The People when it suits us.

Yep, I had the same reply and was going to say much the same.

Just watch them say that more and more often.

Semi, I agree, but from my point of view Brexit has been sold to some as 'keeping out' certain undesirables in the interests of national security (we'll forget the inconvenient truth that any Islamic terrorism in the UK is liable to be homegrown and runs the risk of being inflamed by a hostile immigration policy to Muslims or cosying up to Trump). Yet the possibility of national security issues is not restricted merely to Islamic terrorism. Nor is it actually restricted to Irish terrorism (I seem to remember there also being unionist terrorists, which could also yet pop up in this process depending on what happens to NI)

The whole thing is based on ignorance.

If people weren't so bloody ignorant think how Great Britain could be. (Ignorance is different to intelligence and education - as nicely demonstrated by various MPs at the moment).

Should WM not pursue Brexit because of the (very real) threats of violence?

That's a leading question in the vein of 'when did you stop beating your wife'.
Westminster should put the good of the country first, and that includes all four countries, not just the south east of England. An outbreak of violence needs to be taken into the equation. Isn't that what they are afraid of now when they talk about 'the will of the people?' but the Troubles were substantially more damaging, than the threat from 'the will of the people. This IMO, in the main, not ignoring Jo Cox's death or the Pole kicked to death, is a few right wingers getting into punch ups, mostly with each other.

Should WM not pursue Brexit because of the (very real) threats of violence?

The risk here is not Brexit per se, but the type of brexit pursued, and the way it is implemented. If there is a perception that Ireland is being sacrificed on the ideological altar, then I think that people will be angry. In a country with such a recent history of violence, and where sectarianism continues to bubble under the surface, it's pretty obvious that any sense that the English are fucking over the Irish won't play well with those with republican leanings. Conversely, if nationalists feel that they are being forced into an unwanted closer union with the ROI, that could provoke violence too.

Finally, all the evidence suggests that leaving the customs union will cause serious damage to the NI economy and that this will be true regardless of wherher NI remains in the CU itself (because it would damage NI-mainland trade). As I said above, deprivation and job-losses would once again make NI fertile territory for recruitment by extremist organisations.

Going back to what Time, Bored, Corcory and others have said.

I'm a remainer, and firmly believe that the UK ref result is not in the country's long term best interests.

However, when Leavers who put forth their opinions are piled on, and made personally responsible for any negative effects of Brexit, surely this polarises opinion further. Leavers no longer participating in the thread turns it into an echo chamber.

Remainers lost the referendum, in part, because leavers felt that their concerns were not listened to. It doesn't matter if their reasons for leaving make no sense to remainers, they are still entitled to their reasons. And if, as polls have shown, there was a clear demarcation in educational levels of respective voters, it seems wrong to blame those leavers who fell for the lies and rhetoric (not all leavers, many are educated and have well thought out arguments).

To fail to listen properly to leavers now, and to dismiss arguments because you don't think they stand up to scrutiny, is exactly what happened prior to the ref, and it didn't exactly go well for remainers.

Belittling and failure to engage will return a massive Tory majority to this country. Surely a better approach would be, what are your concerns and how can we change things so we're all happy-ish with the outcome?

You are right of course, Penelope, that a respectful attitude to debate, avoiding generalisations on either side, is what we should all be aiming for, but I had to laugh at this:

" Surely a better approach would be, what are your concerns and how can we change things so we're all happy-ish with the outcome?"

This has been attempted to a painful degree over too many of these threads to count.

Surely a better approach would be, what are your concerns and how can we change things so we're all happy-ish with the outcome?
Surely that was the job of the government first and foremost. But most of that would entail taking some responsibility for their own failings which they, and I mean that in all it's plural sense, find completely impossible.

Misti, thanks for your answer.

Ignoring movement of people now, and just focussing on goods & trade - focussing in Ireland & NI alone; will access to the customs union work? (as with Turkey).

Yes, I agree it has been attempted over the threads, but when the answers given by leavers are dismissed, instead if engaged with, you get no further forwards.

I think the my way or the highway approach cuts both ways here TBH.

And yes, the government should have done things differently, but they haven't. I hate the result and wrote/phoned my MP etc, and will continue to fight for amendments.

But, I never thought I would feel sympathy for leavers until I read this thread.

Also, individual leavers are not responsible for the government's or opposition's ineptitude. That doesn't always come over here.

Surely a better approach would be, what are your concerns and how can we change things so we're all happy-ish with the outcome?

Doesn't this work both ways? And if not, why not?

Remainers like me find it tedious debating with Brexiters because, almost without exception (the exceptions being the soft-brexiters) they are not interested in the practicalities of leaving the world's largest trading bloc. I'm perfectly happy to debate sensible propositions or questions - see my response to semi's post about Ireland and whether it should be allowed to derail a brexit process - because this is not an unreasonable question from an ideological point of view, but unfortunately it fails to take into account certain inescapable realities on issues such as çross border trade, sectarian politics, and Irish history.

Of course, there is nothing inherently ridiculous about a response that says that "yes, Brexit may cause the GFA to fail and terrorism to arise as a result, but this is a price I am personally prepared to pay and to defend politically". We can disagree on this point, and even think that it's an immoral point of view, but it is at least logical and consistent: brexit uber alles, no price for sovereignty is too high.

OTOH I am prepared to bet that we won't get that response, which I would respect for being at least intellectually honest. (If I'm wrong about this then I am happy to apologise).

The point is that a successful brexit will require compromise on both sides. I think it's clear that many remainers would be prepared to compromise in order to achieve a pragmatic brexit; in fact we discussed this a day or two ago. But leavers will brook NO compromise.

While this remains the case, for me at least, even if we lost, we are NOT getting over it.

I was about to say much the same as Hashi.

May and her Government should be taking the lead on this. Has she done so? Apart from a few empty words about 'a country which works for all' and being concerned about the 'just about managing', (what about those who aren't managing?), what exactly has she done?

She referred to 16 million who voted Remain as losers in the White Paper. The White paper which had to be forced out of them. So not listening to that group.

What about those regions which feel totally disconnected from Westminster? What has she done for them? While she has been busy running around cosying up to Trump and Erdogan, has she made a tour of towns and cities in the North and West to start to listen to their problems?

NI/Scotland - she might as well IMO have said, 'Get Stuffed' to them because again, apart from empty words, she hasn't got anything to offer them.

EU citizens, and those married to and with those with British offspring? Bargaining chips, 'boo hoo, can't do anything until that nasty EU takes the lead', is her approach there.

So who is she listening too? Predominantly a group of extreme right wingers in her own party, but dressing it up as 'the will of the people', (which as we see from a few posts earlier, is 'when it suits us'.)

Ignoring movement of people now, and just focussing on goods & trade - focussing in Ireland & NI alone; will access to the customs union work? (as with Turkey).

Ok well I apologise to semi upfront because this is another sensible question.

No, is the answer. Turkey is not in the EU CU; it has a separate customs union agreement which does not cover all goods and notably excludes agricultural trade. There is still a hard border for goods, but some goods are exempt from tariffs and benefit from expedited customs procedures.

NI remaining in the EU CU doesn't solve all the issues either, because those issues move to the NI-rUK border, where the volume of trade (in £) is greater even if the number of border crossings may be lower. It could even be more economically damaging.

This is covered in the NI select committee transcript which I urge you to read. Note that this committee meeting did not cover veterinary controls or phytosantiary checks which are a separate aspect; it only looked at customs procedures and duties.