Westministers: The Lords Strike Back

[RedToothBrush]

This needs no fanfare or lengthy post. Just this:

The Lords are demanding amendments unilateral protection for EU citizens.

Labour was split 358 for an amendment to 256 against.

This is after Amber Rudd had tried to reassure the Lords by writing a letter assuring peers that EU citizens would be treated with the utmost respect.

Utmost respect = an amendment to guarantee unilateral support.

Today is a good day. It should have been done in the first place.

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/03/03/week-in-review-the-brexit-age-of-double-think

...At the Scottish Conservatives' spring conference she gave one of the most eloquent, well-reasoned, comprehensive, clear-sighted and passionate defences of cooperation between nations we'd heard for some time. It was, of course, dedicated to the preservation of the British Union against a second Scottish independence referendum. But the manner in which her rhetoric negated her own policies on Brexit was uncanny. In fact, it was such a blow-by-blow intellectual rejection of her entire purpose in government that there were points where it honestly seemed it might be some sort of coded cry for help – a desperate message to the country at large, shouted above the heads of her Brexit captors. Maybe Theresa was still a Remainer, held hostage in Downing Street by shadowy eurosceptic forces, and this was her only way of getting the message out. It must be true. Any other explanation would mean her hypocrisy was almost biblical in scale.

"some sort of coded cry for help – a desperate message to the country at large, shouted above the heads of her Brexit captors"

Banks Can’t Keep EU Access With Shells After Brexit: ECB

Slightly off the point but Lautenschlaeger said in a speech at LSE:

"I do not see the ECB issuing banking licenses to empty shell companies... “I would certainly not accept banks’ booking all exposures with the euro area entity while having their risk management and internal control systems outside the euro area.”

re Euratom:
I suspect May & her govt imagine they can fudge things and muddle through.
NOONE fudges certification in the nuclear industry
Not going to happen

MPs were told:
Britain must strike up to 20 deals to re-establish the basis on which it engages with other countries, such as the US and Japan, outside of Euratom.
“There is a plethora of nuclear agreements that would have to be struck . . . before we could begin to move not only materials but also intellectual property, services, anything in the nuclear sector,”

Britain’s ageing power stations rely on supplies from the US
However, May's new handholder can't just nod her through.
The Uk will need to negotiate a new deal, which must then be passed by Congress.

" It took four years of “lengthy and difficult” negotiations in the 1990s to agree an upgrade to the Euratom-US co-operation agreement, which was due to lapse.
And even then the deal could not be ratified on time by the US Senate.
The wait caused a three-month hiatus when all transatlantic nuclear trade stopped dead. That is something the UK would not want to risk today."

But the manner in which her rhetoric negated her own policies on Brexit was uncanny

I wondered how she could argue there was 'no economic case for breaking the union' with a straight face.

Place marking

The difference is that in Scotland, we have lost sovereignty to the UK/Westminster, whereas the UK only felt like we had lost sovereignty as confirmed in the White Paper

That makes all the difference to trade opportunities

I read that NI might become majority Catholic 2016-2017
The 2011 census had 48:45 Protestant : Catholic and iirc that was a 5% change from the orevious census.

Catholics have been a majority in the under-35 population for a while, so it's just a matter of time as the older Protestants gradually die off.
Apparently 52% of Catholics want to stay in the UK, but that may change with Brexit
Especially if the Troubles flare up again and May uses the same tact & sensitivity she displayed in Scotland

I read that NI might become majority Catholic 2016-2017
interesting, similar stats for non whites in US, hence Pence (rhymes!)

So she may have lost us what's left of the car industry, safe nuclear use in industry and medicine, and two countries.

I don't know where majority SF win leaves imminent prospect of a united EU Ireland.

The UK will need a working deal that satisfies the EU on personal data post Brexit*

www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/03/uk_privacy_shield/

Leading to the possibility I floated a while ago that - as a result of the EU requiring the UK put certain protections in place - an EU citizen in the UK could actually have more protection from the UK state than a UK citizen.

Once again, making a mockery of "taking back control|"

*If it wishes to do business with EU citizens that is. The UK could always choose not to.

no economic case for breaking the union

She just doesn't get it, about Ireland or Scotland. It's a question of respect, justice and history, and she may learn that there at least, they can't be bought.

SF will get max 29 seats, DUP min 29, DUP more votes so will keep right to nominate First Minister. (DUP likely more seats anyway.)

"'Crushed out of existence'
Political commentator Newton Emerson says the UUP and SDLP have been crushed out of existence in this election.
The two moderate parties went into official opposition after last year's election and Emerson says the results show that "putting yourself into the wilderness in our system just doesn't work"

Theresa May's keynote speech in Scotland was to hardline Tory unionist members.

An attendee posted online:

"Probably only around 200 people and that included paid Tory attendees and the press.
As a colleague commented, it was like a hospital waiting room for the elderly.
Two ladies of the Orange lodge persuasion wearing full union flag jackets sat on their own, with other members dotted around the smallest conference room in the areana (holds circs 600).
Very morgue like.

Despite all her rhetoric, the Tories in Scotland still have less of the voting share than when when the Tory vote collapsed during Thatcher's time.
With circa 22% support they are not a threat in Scotland.
Even some Conservatives were unhappy with the PM today.
Very ignorant of Scottish politics.
She clearly does not understand that independence in Scotland is not one party centric.
There's a Scottish Tories for Independence group who are active in campaigning.

Today she spoke gained no new supporters and lost some.
Will she ever learn that politics north of the border has few similarities of that in England?"

Bad day for moderates in NI

The Ulster Unionist leader, Mike Nesbitt, has resigned after his party failed to increase its share of the vote despite the DUP scandals.
“The buck stops here,” he said.

The SDLP suffered their worst-ever result, with only about 11% share of the vote.

Tight finish for largest party / First Minister after first preference votes gave Sinn Fein 27.9 % vs DUP 28.08 %

Sinn Fein may not win this time, but quite likely will within 5 years or so.
That'll be a huge blow psychologically for most Unionists: they have their "British" country - but ruled by "Fenians."

Yes BigChoc, looks like SF have come out well. I am still ashamed of my ignorance of NI politics, but looks like they've voted more for pro EU anti austerity, and united Ireland.

But what was repeated a lot on BBC Ulster (It is pathetic that despite living in the country of an election and I couldn't get any info apart from twitter feeds and a local radio station about the election) was the desire for 'respect'.

The lack of attention by the British media to the election is another example!
The DUP's failure to honour agreements on using the Irish language, had been cited as a feature of disrespect which hardened SF to break off the power sharing agreement.

In Scotland too, May exhibited really offensive disrespect, I thought in today's speech, which could be a poor political move.

"But Brexit is also proof that political emotion can triumph over economic reason"., which could come back to bite May in Scotland and Ireland.
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/what-s-your-brilliant-business-idea (article on May and new Scottish referendum)

@StephenNolan
Ian Paisley tells Nolan 5Live the DUP needs to " Stretch out the hand of forebearance to other parties"

@JayneMcCormack
North Antrim poll topper @mcguigan_philip makes his declaration speech - says election was about respect #ae17

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-services-growth-slows-february-a7608946.html

It's not going to be necessarily a case of political emotion or economic reason in NI. My guess is one will reinforce the other. Without EU subsidies, NI's economy is about to go down the drain.

The election results reflect increasing polarisation and perhaps even a province gearing up for the ultimate fight, one everyone has long known is coming. Ian Paisley Jr continues to be an unexpected voice of reason (unexpected because of his late father's long years of unreasonable political stance). He has a lot of courage in a party of diehard warriors who think it is a good idea to fight to the death 24/7 in the political arena. I suspect Paisley has more foresight than many of his colleagues when it comes to the arithmetic of elections and what the future holds. He also has the cachet of the Paisley name working for him. He has nothing to prove, whereas most of the rest of the DUP establish their political credibility by adopting the hardest of hardline positions.

I think, given Theresa May's wooden ear on matters Scottish, she is going to approach NI with all the finesse of a sledgehammer, and the result will be a long way from what her Orange supporters would like.

I do think we are seeing with a few notable exceptions a rather tribal / herding mentality developing which blindly follows the political elites move to the right and attempts (often aggressively as we saw on the other thread and have seen in the press) to silence anyone who challenges /questions it, even if they are part of our democratic system of checks and balances that are there to protect us from extremism.

That is what scares me most about these times, never before has British politics been so divisive and unpleasant and values that I thought were a given and established in our society are suddenly under threat

I see that too, Whatwouldrondo.

There is a shift in the Overton window as a pp remarked. Taboos have been broken. Whatever the Leave voters may have imagined they were voting for, opinion is crystallising a good way to the authoritarian right of where it used to be. Many indications of this were present during the referendum campaign, in particular the racism and the level of anger.

I see the calls for the abolition or reform of the HoL as an expression of revolutionary fervour. Coming hot on the heels of the HoL's principled stand for the rights of foreign nationals resident in the UK, I see anger being vented that has its origins in racism and resentment, with no appreciation whatsoever that the same HoL as currently constituted is all that will stand between British citizens and a right wing revolution carried out by the Tory Party once the ECHR and the ECJ are out of the picture. The call for rule by Parliament alone is actually a call for mob rule, a grab for power by people who do not want any effective opposition, or checks, or balances. In current conditions it is effectively a call for a single party state.

You can't get more integrated & useful than saving the lives of children, but even that isn't enough to stop this Zimbabwean man being deported.

He saved his neighbour's two children from a house fire and was then hospitalised with smoke inhalation.
He has no criminal record, doesn't want to return to Mugabe's hellhole

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/03/man-who-saved-two-children-from-house-fire-to-be-deported-from-uk

YouGov poll May vs Corbyn

Labour voters: May 11% - 53% Corbyn

Every other group heavily prefers May:

All voters: May 49% – 15% Corbyn
Tory voters: May 95% – 0% Corbyn - Can't remember a Leader of the Opposition with 0% in any group ! He won't be getting any "soft" Tory votes.
UKIP voters: May 66% – 4% Corbyn
LibDem voters: May 30% – 15% Corbyn
Leave voters: May: 71% – 8% Corbyn
Remain voters: May 35% – 24% Corbyn
2015 Tory voters: May 85% – 3% Corbyn
2015 UKIP voters: May 70% – 7% Corbyn
2015 LibDem voters: May 41% – 12% Corbyn
Men: May 53% – 14% Corbyn
Women: May 46% – 15% Corbyn
18-24 year-olds: May 31 – 23% Corbyn
25-49 year-olds: May 39% – 18% Corbyn
50-64 year-olds: May 58% – 12% Corbyn
65+ voters: May 70% – 6% Corbyn
ABC1 voters: May 52% – 14% Corbyn
C2DE voters: May 46% – 15% Corbyn
London voters: May 41% – 18% Corbyn
Rest of Southern voters: May 55% – 12% Corbyn
Midlands / Welsh voters: May 55% – 12% Corbyn
Northern voters: May 46% – 18% Corbyn
Scottish voters: May 39% – 17% Corbyn

Meanwhile ...
Does the Great British Public Give a Shit about the vulnerable ?

A Conservative minister has defended a decision to reduce benefits paid to widows and widowers with young children by claiming the old system risked stopping people from “readjusting” to life as a single parent.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/03/bereavement-benefits-cut-to-help-people-readjust-to-life-as-single-parents

The disability benefits of man with no legs were cut "because he could climb stairs with his arms"
Forunately a Community Law Centre successfully helped him appeal.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disability-benefits-man-julius-holgate-no-legs-cut-government-pip-climb-stairs-with-arms-dwp-a7606416.html

Interview with Gina Miller here:

uk.businessinsider.com/gina-miller-interview-her-brexit-legal-case-a-final-vote-and-press-harassment-article-50-2017-3

And UK journalist could go to jail for threatening 'economic wellbeing' which could affect brexit.
boingboing.net/2017/03/03/brexit-means-shut-your-gob.html

Sad but true in NI math

UK journalists

"journalists who handle or report on leaked documents demonstrating corruption or government malfeasance would face prison sentences"

End of mumsnet politics.

I thought it was US initially, and another Trump shut down, but nope, it's here.