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.

Think tory central office got a bit scared about the council tax revolt, it was a bit poll taxy.

But the business rate increase is a problem for them too now.

If May is so popular why doesn't she call an election?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/theresa-may-vicars-daughter-gambler-ruling-out-early-election

Talk of hard border to North of Ireland on the mainland on R4 at lunchtime.
rexit-hard-border-could-be-across-irish-sea-890651/

More links on expenses:
www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/02/tory-election-expenses-fraud/
www.isbuc.co.uk/expenses/
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/13/tory-election-expenses

Is this May's dodgy dossier?

This link particularly detailed about what the claims and implications are:

www.isbuc.co.uk/expenses/

The Reason
It's all about Legitimacy. The Conservatives won the 2015 General Election returning 331 MPs which gave them a 12 seat majority.

If just 6 winning MPs independently broke the law to win their seats this would reduce the number of Conservatives in Westminster to the magic 325 and they'd no longer have a majority.

However the very real possibility of a Party wide conspiracy, systematically cheating to win, has attracted the Electoral Commission's eye - resulting in them requesting the involvement of various Police Authorities and the Crown (CPS) Prosecution Service - and, if proven, signals the end of Westminster as we know it.

Just imagine if everything the Conservative Gov't has enacted since 2015 turns out to have no democratic legitimacy.

Lots of time critical decisions atm.
"The Time
Only 63 days left. For some inexplicable reason if you cheat at politics and no-one notices for a whole year then you get away with it. Luckily someone noticed, the CPS started an investigation and several Police Authorities applied for an "extension to the time limit available to pursue criminal prosecutions."

Time's up on 7th May 2017. Hopefully, the reason it's all quiet out there is because the various Police Authorities are busily preparing iron-clad cases, however one already dropped case doesn't give much cause for hope."

Cailleach1:

Of course they would never do that! Outrageous suggestion! Also, the fact that Jeremy Hunt, Chris Grayling, Philip Hammond, Michael Gove and Sir Paul Beresford are all Surrey MPs is innuendo and cynicism at its very worst and had nothing whatsoever to do with the Gentleman's Agreement reached with the Government.

Actually, there are pretty swinging cuts at Surrey CC. They have all but lost their Early Years department, for example - about 100 jobs going. That was announced before the Council Tax rise, though, so I'd say there isn't much more left to cut. I'd also say that the more they bluster about "Gentleman's Agreements", the less people believe their explanations.

If May is so popular why doesn't she call an election?

Because (so the narrative goes) the evil LibDems overpowered the brave Tory minority in the last government and forced them to accept fixed term parliaments as the price for the plucky conservatives to prop up the austerity politics of the centre left.

In reality, fixed term parliaments are the Ying to the Yang of proportional representation. Only the British could have got it as hopelessly wrong as we have ....

Now there is the obstacle of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act to be navigated. It certainly makes life more complicated for the prime minister. Still, where there was a will, many of her MPs think, Mrs May could find a way. The simplest mechanism would be to ask parliament to approve an election and dare the opposition parties to say no and make themselves look scared of the people. Quite a lot of Labour MPs would even relish it in a kind of way to get the misery of the Corbyn era behind them

FTPA could be navigated. Is she having a Brown moment?
She will never get a chance like this again, or does she know something we don't.

Presumably what she knows is that half the referendum voters voted remain and, while opinion polls indicate she has a lot of support, no-one can be quite sure which way an election cookie would crumble.

More on the political funding and where the money comes from:

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/05/business-leaders-ready-donate-six-figure-sums-save-uk-second/

^Business leaders are ready to donate more money to fight Scottish independence in a second referendum than they did in 2014 and several have already promised six-figure sums, a controversial campaign group has said.

Richard Cook, who chairs the pro-Union Constitutional Research Council (CRC), said “several” wealthy backers are prepared to hand over major sums to “a new and positive campaign” to keep the UK together.

Mr Cook broke his silence following claims CRC funnelled money from unknown sources to the Democratic Unionist Party to fund its Brexit campaign. The £425,000 donation was not only used in Northern Ireland, but across the UK, for press advertisements.

The Eastwood businessman has extensive foreign business links, having set up an investment management company with the former head of the Saudi Arabian intelligence agency, but denied that the group has foreign funding.

Rejecting claims about the source of the DUP donation, he said: “There have been rumours that the DUP got this money from Vladimir Putin, dark shadowy groups, then Saudi intelligence and even from beneficiaries of an arms drop in India. It is all fanciful nonsense.”

His main contact was Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP MP whom Mr Cook said he had known for 25 years and who was the party’s campaign director in the EU referendum. They once shared a platform at a Scottish Tory conference.^.

The problem with calling a GE is that it would require all parties to set out their detailed position on the Brexit process and final destination, in the form of a manifesto against which they will be judged. Neither the Tories or Labour want that right now as they would have to answer questions which they either don't want to answer, or to which they don't have an answer.

The Chancellor doesn't fill me with confidence about a Brexit deal ....

"Philip Hammond has vowed Britain will not "slink off like a wounded animal" if the country does not secure a deal with the EU post-Brexit but will instead "fight back" and do whatever it takes to compete on the global stage.

The Chancellor praised the country's "fighting spirit" as he pledged to ensure the UK has enough "gas in the tank" to weather any storms that may hit as a result of leaving the union over the next few years.

How does "fighting spirit" pay the bills ?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/05/chancellor-vows-uk-will-fight-back-eu-offers-bad-deal-hints/

will instead "fight back" and do whatever it takes to compete on the global stage
Sounds like a declaration of war. Or a pre-intention.

Wtf does it mean? Fight with what?

No not a declaration of war... just a message that she is not to be fu€k3d with. I'm glad.

I assume she means fight back against the wishes of many member states for a punitive deal.

Hammond sounded so vacuous. Another Remainer who's now realised what crap the Tories can get away with re more austerity and dismantling of public services because it's "the will of the people".

Oh dear, Russian politician Igor Lebedev proposes legalising football hooliganism.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39172314

What she really thinks ?
So what on earth is she doing now

Theresa May in April 2016:

"It is tempting to look at developing countries' economies, with their high growth rates, and see them as an alternative to trade with Europe.
But just look at the reality of our trading relationship with China - with its dumping policies, protective tariffs and industrial-scale industrial espionage.

And look at the figures.
We export more to Ireland than we do to China,
almost twice as much to Belgium as we do to India,
and nearly three times as much to Sweden as we do to Brazil.

It is not realistic to think we could just replace European trade with these new markets."

"And while we could certainly negotiate our own trade agreements, there would be no guarantee that they would be on terms as good as those we enjoy now.

There would also be a considerable opportunity cost given the need to replace the existing agreements - not least with the EU itself - that we would have torn up as a consequence of our departure."

The 'fighting spirit' language really is hearkening back to 1940, isn't it. The good old days when the Hun was the enemy and Britain wouldn't have survived without Franklin Roosevelt..

The fighting spirit language will appeal to a lot of leavers wanting to put the Great back into Britain or whatever the saying is.

Its all very if we don't get what we are happy to self destruct so badly we will take you down too. These people don't understand how to be grown up do they?

Math I think your admiration for Putin (iirc related to his hostility towards Muslim militants) blinds you to what is going on.

BigChoc, I think you are seeing Russian boogeymen to such an extent that you cannot appreciate the fact that the fake news phenomenon arose from the 90s culture wars in the US, and that it is a homegrown phenomenon that needed no fuel from anywhere in order to ignite it. What set it alight in the US was the election of a black president, a completely intolerable event in the eyes of racist America, and proof that the apocalypse is upon us.

The right wing is alive and kicking in the west, in South Africa and in NI and in the American South, and also in western European countries like France, Belgium and the Netherlands and it was not Putin who nurtured it. In the east and central Europe, Hungary, Slovakia, the Baltic states, Croatia and western Ukraine have always played with fascism and have had home grown fascist movements from the inter war years onwards. Many regimes in those states were openly supportive allies of the Third Reich. Even Poland had a flirtation with authoritarianism before WW2, and some fringe fascist movements. Italy of course contributed the name itself.

The UK is heading in this direction with virtually nobody able to see it or apply the brakes. Is this Putin's doing too? Or have the Tories always been latent right wing authoritarians and Little Englanders? Regulation of industry, elimination of safeguards like the ECJ or the ECHR, and rhetoric that is hostile to immigrants, calls for national unity, etc., are all either present or gathering speed in the UK.

If a rift between Europe and the US is Putin's goal then he requires a European entity and not a vacuum in order to make that scenario operate to his advantage. Destroying the EU is not Putin's aim.

Russia's involvement in effectively mopping up after the catastrophic destabilisation in the ME caused by rash and illegal British and American adventures there has so far prevented Israel from pushing the nuclear button, and Russia's alignment with Iran (which has also contributed forces to fight ISIS in Syria) has so far prevented the US from doing likewise. This is even before we get around to mentioning the liberation of millions of Muslims from the brutal rule of the ISIS fundamentalists. What's not to like? Would you prefer to see ISIS overrun the entire middle east? Nuclear holocaust? What is your problem with wanting to wipe out Muslim militants who want to destroy the west?

Little do many Leavers realise that fight back = turning UK into a low regulation, low social protection, tax haven.

The practical reality is a lot less heady than Blitz spirit.

and no NHS

What is your problem with wanting to wipe out Muslim militants who want to destroy the west?

How will you wipe out the ones born in the ghettos of French and Belgian cities, who are far more of a threat (though still, objectively, not a very big one) to their fellow European citizens?

I know it's not a direct parallel, but peace in Ireland wasn't achieved by wiping out Catholic terrorists who wanted to destroy the Union.

It's also a question of framing the narrative now so that failure to secure a deal can be spun as fortitude rather than fuckwittage.