Westminster: Brexit is the hard right's weapon of mass distraction

[BigChocFrenzy]

The fervour and divisions over Brexit have suspended normal party politics.

The staggering incompetence & unsuitability of Corbyn as a leader, together with the resulting impotence of Labour has removed the normal checks & balances in UK politics.
There is a vaccum where the Official Opposition should be, so Theresa May is under pressure only from her right.

I fear Thereas May and the Tory rightwing are taking advantage of Brexit to complete the destruction of the post-WW2 social contract and the welfare state.

Meanwhile, the constraints of civilised discourse have been loosened and those with racist or social Darwinist views now feel free to spout their poison openly.

Putin is pouring petrol on all the fires and Arron Banks is lurking < sinister emoticons required >

Zoe Williams:
"Behind a smokescreen of bogus patriotism, ideologically driven cuts to the NHS and all our public services are unpicking the bonds of nationhood"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/05/brexit-theresa-may-falklands-war-nhs-cuts

"We should be marching against the crisis in adult social care, the closure of care homes, the systematic exploitation of carers, the £4.6bn cut from social care budgets this decade.
We should be .... asking:

“What exactly is the plan, if we’ve decided we can no longer afford to care for the elderly and the disabled?
What do we do with them instead?”

"We should be marching against cuts in education funding"

"Every morning we wake up to someone on the radio explaining, despairingly, that you can’t fix the hospital bed crisis until social care is fixed, and you can’t fix that until council tax brings in more, and it can’t bring in more because wages are too low."

"But when everything breaks at the same time, that is not a coincidence: it is a plan.

As surely as Margaret Thatcher had an economic plan on employment, rights, industry and wages,
this century’s Conservatives have a plan on public services, which is to smash them beyond all recognition."

Beats Wikipedia!

Bigly if true....
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39200658?ns_mchannel=social&ns_

DH and I were talking about the lack of colonial history learning again today. His memory of learning about the boer war is similar to mine. We just happened to be about, called in to help, then buggered off. Except every single South African we meet has a whole different history that oddly makes a lot more sense.

Fucking hell. Heseltine has been sacked as a government adviser. They really just want yes men.

Peregrina Sorry to answer your question late - been out at training.

Philip Hammond is indeed a Surrey MP, as are Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, and Chris Grayling.

Who wanted proof of rise in hate crime?
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-hate-crime-eu-referendum-london-racist-religious-faith-victims-figures-statistics-a7615356.html

Tanith...well. Surprise surprise

Philip Hammond is indeed a Surrey MP, as are Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt, and Chris Grayling.

Well Surrey has a lot to answer for...

pretty while I agree with the principle, that diagram is pretty misleading, as the areas of those circles do not correspond to the numbers printed on it!

I think they must have made the diameters proportional not the areas.

Heseltine sacked

The Indian minister dealing with Uk trade negotiations:

Britain must stop “punishing” Indian students and skilled professionals if it wants a post-Brexit trade deal with Delhi

“To receive us saying, ‘We don’t have the manpower but we’ll punish you and take that money for training our own,’ just seems unfair,” she said.
“It hits us both ways. You don’t have people, we’re coming there to service that, and you punish us because you don’t have people. It just doesn’t hold logic. It is as good as saying, ‘We are going to take it out of you to train our people,’ which is an inadequacy in your governance."
India are demanding the UK cut the cost of visas for ordinary Indians and have rejected May's offer of fast-tracking for the wealthiest.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/cut-cost-of-visas-if-you-want-post-brexit-trade-deal-india-tells-may-npc8z2czd

A famine which killed over 1 million people "could have been managed better..."?

Too right it could have been- They could have eaten cake.

I think someone from the EU said that a few years ago when heads were rolling..........

Another reason Brexit is so complicated: A50 is very unclear

So all parties can claim it means what they want it to mean.
That may delay reaching an agreement while everyone argues first about that.

"The current controversy about the UK’s potential liabilities on its departure from the EU occurs because nobody involved in writing the Union’s treaties expected it to happen.
So there were no explicit provisions for the legal positions of the parties when it did happen....

Article 50 was never intended to be used but only looked at:
it was an ornament, not an instrument.

There was no thought given to how it would work in practice — even in general, let alone in painstaking detail in respect of financial liabilities"

https://www.ft.com/content/d325aff9-14aa-38c6-a794-d92ec0eab0c7

One to address the Brexit Bingo - Greece has been brought to its needs and its young people let down. Varfoukis..

"Within weeks, I was traversing Britain campaigning against Brexit. Audiences were puzzled: “How can you, given the way the EU treated you and your country, tell us that we should remain?” The confusion was not eased by Michael Gove and other Brexiters, who heaped praise on my book, mischievously presenting it as the best argument for Britain to leave the EU.

Suffice to say that those who think that Brexit will bring about closer links between the UK, the US and the rest of the world misunderstand the origins of the EU, the role of the US in piecing it together and the negative effects that the EU’s fragmentation is already having on the rest of the world."

www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/07/yanis-varoufakis-people-were-confused-that-i-didnt-support-brexit

'The british government were arseholes at that time. Not just to the irish'

All part of maintaining ones authority in a marvellous empire we once had....

You can't control what is not subjecated, otherwise loyalty suffers.

*All part of maintaining ones authority in a marvellous empire we once had....

You can't control what is not subjecated, otherwise loyalty suffers.*

Oh dear trolling at its saddest but nope you need proper genocide to control.....

Enjoy your afternoon tea.........

Oh dear trolling at its saddest but nope you need proper genocide to control.....

Enjoy your afternoon tea

Not at its morally saddest but more a realist of what we once were.

Never have I seen a country more soft and liberal than the United Kingdom has become. Quite frankly it saddens me.

What were you hoping for? Hanging? Massacres? Genocide?

Redpoll - when you refer to "maintaining authority in an empire we once had".

Which empire was that? And who is "we"?

Tonight I have seen the true image of the average Briton.

We have discussed the relations of Brexit to the troubles in Northern Ireland and the Middle East as a subject related to racism and its the retoric the stayers have to play on against leavers

It saddens me when our own countrymen have gave their lives for this country and you seem Respondent that a minority group is unfairly treated because of that?

Give it a rest and let's put it another way-If you are fat at school you get picked on. Don't make you a bad person but by god if are the fat one you wish you was anything but that.

That's life, unfortunately.

Better language classes needed.

Good grief. The night shift is fun tonight, hey?