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?!

The Herald also thinks the Queen will have to put up the sheet-soiler at Balmoral
The cunning plan is for the visit to be during the Parliamentary recess, to avoid protests at Westminster.
So he won't Tweet / speak to the HoC & HoL

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15085815.BalmoralbeckonssforDonalddTrumptooavoidMPssand_protesters/?ref=mrb&lp=9

....so #presidentbawbag (or #scrotus ) thinks he can avoid protests by moving his "state visit" to Scotland?

He doesn't have a clue but we knew that already

Like it Prettybird! They have forgotten the massive protests at Gleneagles!

I look forward to a certain section of ardent Leavers having to suck up FoM from Turkey, India and Pakistan. This was not what they voted for.

I also look forward to Trump's visit to Scotland - I might even take a holiday up there myself......

Does Her Maj have windfarms nearby ? Trump loves Scottish windfarms

He'll demand a bigly knighthood.
She's 90 and the sword is heavy
An easy slip

Spanish, Italian, Polish, Portuguese nurses and careers will just be replaced by those from Ghana, India and Pakistan.

Ah yes send him to a place with a view of a wind farm! That would be good. Send him on visits to renewable energy sites and get Charles to give him lectures on the environment!

I live in Glasgow but would love to have an excuse to visit Balmoral.

It'll be good to have a focus for my frustration democratic right to free speech

Trump has had one positive effect: Corcory and I are having fun agreeing on the topic of Trump

Please take Trump to Hull. Or St Helens. Or Blackpool. Or Stoke.

Twitter thread to ponder:

Laurie Perry @PennyRed
Time to face facts: Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States, is a dangerous madman.
www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2017/02/mad-king-donalds-executive-disorder

McDuff @McHeckinDuff
Absolutely cannot agree with this. Trump is not mad. He acts like a rich white dude. To define this as aberrant is to socially misplace it.

Tim Minchin @timminchin
@McHeckinDuff @dcturner I loathe Trump with all my being, but this is not true. I've met a lot of rich white dudes. Not one like Trump.

McDuff @McHeckinDuff
@timminchin This is going to take a lot more than 140 characters to go through.
No, not every single rich white man behaves exactly like Trump.
And no, not every person who acts like Trump is rich, white or male.
But the structures which support and select for these "crazy" behaviours are white supremacist patriarchal capitalism.
Cruelty and aggression as dominance strategies aren't unusual in any walk of life, and are tied to masculinist virtue
White supremacy is in no sense unusual, nor casual misogyny and sexual entitlement.
You're Australian: you don't know anyone in your country who thinks sending brown people to an island is a good idea?
While Trump may be gauche even by the standards of New York Socialite assholes, it's a degree not deviance.
Trumpian behaviour is endlessly rewarded. Is Pence also "mad," is Sessions, is Bannon, is Tony Abbott?
The USA spent 50 years laying the groundwork for Trump. Were all those who did so crazy?
The social institutions designed to keep rich white men rich and prevent others from becoming so reward people like Trump.
The colonialist states are constructed on a social basis of carrying out genocide while denying that's what you're doing.
Nothing Trump is doing is "mad." It is the result of years of constructing a discourse that makes it acceptable.

Red - Love the idea of Hull or Blackpool! He He He we can have a giggle between us on this thread Prettybird!

French GE

If we dare believe polls (and my French !) ...

Macron is catching up with LePen in the first round (5 main candidates) and would heavily defeat her, 63% vs 37% in the second round:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/2017/02/08/97001-20170208FILWWW00245-sondage-macron-battrait-largement-le-pen-au-second-tour.php

and 2 more similar polls
The austerity conservative Fillon would also beat her, but not as much.

Looks like the the fascist shouldn't gain many more votes after the 1st round, whereas her opponent would hopefully hoover up most of the votes for the eliminated candidates

Trump Tweet (turn off the wifi at the White House !)

After retailer Nordstrom stopped selling his daughter's crap (poor sales), the mad tweeter got mad again:

"My daughter Ivanka has been treated so unfairly by Nordstrom,” the President tweeted. “She is a great person – always pushing me to do the right thing! Terrible!”

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Nordstrom had made a “direct attack” on the President’s policies.

George W’s chief ethics lawyer:
“This is misuse of public office for private gains”

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/donald-trump-twitter-nordstrom-ivanka-brand-backfire-trading-increase-drop-a7570616.html

Donald Trump's state visit to UK may be moved from London to Brexit heartland amid security concerns

Christ, America is governed by a bunch of dolts right now. Britain is a small country with a functioning transport system. Much of the "Brexit heartland" heartland is less than 2 hours from London. No way Trump turns up anywhere in the UK without a large crowd of protestors.

OMG - I see the Telegraph is reporting that Trump's team is considering booking an 85k capacity venue in Birmingham. 1h20 from Euston folks. He might get 85k but they won't be supporters ...

Anyway back to Brexit. Here's an article by a leading Brexit campaigner on the potential for chaos at the UK's ports. People like corcory, wrongtrousers and semi could do a lot to improve our collective opinion of brexiters by making some rational and knowledgeble comments on this article. Over to you.

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86375

Balmoral is not far from Aberdeen, where he is very unpopular after driving a tank over local objection to build a golf course on a local beauty spot. Should be interesting!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hisXNDZkY

That link above, by the way, was written by a long-time Brexit campaigner in response to an article by prominent brexiter Christopher Booker in the Times. So it looks like some of the brexiters with functioning brainstems are waking up to the enormity of what the government is undertaking and the risks of getting it wrong.

This leave voter - another long-time, prominent campaigner for brexit - now confidently expects Brexit to be a trainwreck, because the government is clueless, the civil service either lacks expertise or doesn't have the courage to talk about the peril we are facing, and the mainstream press has utterly failed to hold May to account: peterjnorth.blogspot.fr/2017/02/a-brexit-failure-now-seems-inevitable.html

I urge our brexit supporting friends to read these links and the associated comments. The first link, in particular, was written by a man who has campaigned for Brexit for much of his working life and led the only campaign group to write a fully-worked-out plan for brexit prior to the referendum (a plan that was far more detailed than May's "white paper", which should never be referred to without scare quotes).

misti I think this hits the nail on the head for where a lot of people feel uneasy. I'm sure most of us would feel a lot better if the government themselves were being open to these potential issues and were already working on plans to mitigate them. The silence and the lack of acknowledgement in the 'white paper' points wholeheartedly to going lalalalala we're not listening.

Hashi I watched the now infamous NI select committee meeting at which two customs law experts gave evidence.

Only one person on the committee appeared to even understand the issues and what was being said, and that person was an SDLP MP who has no influence in government, The Tories on the committee were apparently too dim or too prejudiced to understand what was being said to them. One of them actually suggested that the answer might be for Ireland and the UK to conspire to break EU law!

Anyone who wants to understand how incompetent this whole process is needs to go and watch that video. It was certainly a wake up call to me, in terms of how badly the UK democratic process has gone wrong. This incredibly complex, risky process is being presided over by people of modest intelligence and no moral fibre.

This incredibly complex, risky process is being presided over by people of modest intelligence and no moral fibre.

Don't expect any negative response, at best you'll get a shrug of the shoulders and a "meh, not my problem to think about". Makes sense if you first understand that Brexit as a concept has by definition no possible downsides.

Misti perhaps our friends in the pub would appreciate that link? I think it is a crucial point though, that saying "let's leave the EU" is like saying "let's move house" and the May government has basically gone "I know! Let's go and live in a high-crime neighbourhood facing on to the railway a hundred miles away from your work! And you have no say!"

Oh god BigChoc please touch wood

You know, I think I could actually at this point get behind a competent Brexit process. It's got to be better than the trainwreck that is coming.

What would a "competent brexit" look like?

1. It would start with a recognition that leaving the EU, the SM and the customs union simultaneously makes us a third party. It would acknowledge that by imposing customs posts and other trade barriers, the EU would not be "punishing us but simply applying both EU and GATT (WTO) legislation. It would stop treating the EU like the enemy and work to improve relationships ahead of the negotiations.

1. It would look for a long transitional arrangement, of at least 10 years, during which SM membership would be retained. It would also seek a mechanism to reverse A50 during that period if things turned out less rosy out than in, or if it turned out that leaving the SM was likely to create serious economic damage, or if public opinion changed in that time.

1. It would immediately seek to guarantee the rights of all EU citizens in the UK at the date of A50 invocation, and to do with unconditionally, on the grounds that achieving a long transition period (a) requires significant goodwill from other EU members and (b) a long transition period in itself means that any EU national legally in the UK in March 2019 should have acquired permanent residence by the end of that period.

Maybe we can discuss what other features a "competent Brexit" might have.