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."

I employ everyone as self employed.

There is not many people who have specialist Tradeskills which would have it any other way, especially in Engineering and Oil/Gas sectors

The traditional thought process of a permanent job with pension and holidays is long gone out the window.

Clients like it to, less trouble with Industrial relations freedom to let go of staff when the work is done. One rate to pay for all hours one invoice etc so less payroll administration, there are so many benefits for both sides.

From the employee prepective more money in your pay packet every week as well.

Does Theresa May give a sh*t about the Brexit voting areas being worst hit? She said her fine words on the steps of Downing Street - she's done her bit.

I'm tempted to forego the "told you so" Patty, and suggest a slow round of applause for the Lexiters instead.

Saw this Newsweek article on Trump today and thought it was convincing. (and scary). here

I keep coming back to the idea that IF Russian infiltration / interference has been happening in US election, what's the likelihood of it having happened in Brexit campaign and referendum? If it could be proved, would the result still stand? Might be wishful thinking on my part...

The results would stand, bella because noone claims the vote count in itself was hacked - not possible in UK votes with paper ballots & reliable counting anyway - just that psychometrics and fake news conned enough voters to change what would have been a narrow vote in one direction to a narrow vote in the other.

Trump may well get impeached for corruption, if he uses his position to benefit his business interests - he is trying to keep them secret, possibly to hide this, or to show how desperately he needs a cash inflow.

I loved the idea of Heseltine as Aslan, Elena

Regarding references to the Victorians/workhouses etc, there was a very interesting post about this on another thread (the one about baby boomers). I'm paraphrasing, but the poster theorised that the 20th century suffered a "shock" out of the normal system through the devastation of two world wars and particularly the loss of life of so many young men. The wealthy elite, especially following the first world war, were affected disproportionately - there were a staggering number of former Eton pupils killed, for example. However, this had a knock-on effect of enforcing social mobility for those left. However, the poster suggested that we were now returning to the traditional Victorian/Edwardian model of society.

That, I'm sure would suit many Tories JRM and his nanny down to the ground. Brexit would just aid the slide towards a narrow wealthy elite and a large group of "poor" kept in their places. The thought of relying on the philanthropy of BoJo and IDS leaves me cold.

Thanks, BCF. That makes sense but is disappointing to hear!

Trump being impeached is just a question of when, I think.

Gracegrape - it certainly feels like the gap between rich and poor has widened alarmingly over the past decade or so. And will continue to widen given that the govt's policies all seem to be designed to enable the well-off to grow their wealth while cutting services and support to those in need. I really don't like this country very much at the moment and I hate feeling ashamed of my birthplace. Brexit's not the cause, just a symptom.

The others, and I assume Switzerland as an EFTA member, are not forced to agree. The most sensible thing would be to agree to the EEA, with perhaps a modest concession on FoM - but we would still have to pay, it doesn't meet May's racist agenda and therefore it ain't gonna happen.

I actually think that if the tide is starting to turn, then EFTA could potentially be sold to the newspapers and hence to the electorate. But there are issues, because you then have to go back to choosing berween a Norway and a Swiss model. Norway is of course in the EEA whereas Switzerland has complex bilateral agreements negotiated over many years. The UK will want the latter, but is there time?

Other issues:

• EFTA membership implies customs borders. As was recommended to the NI select committee, HMRC needs to go and look at how that works on the Norway-Sweden border and then start spending £££ on infrastructure and systems.

• Norway, Sweden, Lichtenstein are in Schenghen. Might be possible to negotiate this, but there will be a heavy cost to pay.

• Norway isn't that keen. Will want safeguards favourable to existing members and almost by definition less favourable to newcomers, ie as with schenghen, there will be a price to pay to bring Norway onside.

On the subject of HMRC and customs borders, it was shocking to me to see that there is literally no budget for this. It's almost tempting to believe that the whole thing is a big charade, because surely if the government seriously believed that they were leaving the EU Customs Union, they would be making preparations now? It's going to take at least 2 years to plan and build facilities at Dover and other ports.

PS thanks eeeoooww for that HoC trade committee report.

I see the night shift didn't bother to show up.

The night shift did show, but we studiously ignored them, so they went away again.

It's madness - if we can see that building Customs facilities at Dover won't happen without time and money, why on earth can't Theresa May and her chums? They can't be that stupid, can they? We know what the chaos will be like with Operation Stack.

Well done all for last night.

I'm torn between thinking they must just be bluffing and they must really be thick as. It terrifying either way. People lives are being messed with for a game

The lack of actually making concrete preparations, two years from leaving the Customs Union, and potentially crashing out of the EU with no deal at all, is really perplexing.

How long will it take to massively expand customs facilities and build warehousing, lorry parking etc in the Dover area? At minimum there has got to be a planning and public procurement exercise before building can start; there may also be environmental impact and public consultation exercises to do.

Even in the private sector you'd want at least a couple of years for this sort of project. This stuff takes time. What does it mean that they are not doing it? Not just not doing it: not planning to do it and not budgeting to do it. How does this chime with the "May wants negotiations to fail" rumours?

Either it's the single greatest act of self-destruction ever contemplated by a government of a modern democracy, or its a bloody great charade. Rational people have got to think the latter, no? Far greater leaps of faith involved in assuming the former.

It makes my head hurt, I'm going to go and write about relativelg more straightforward stuff like commodities trade instead (that's not a joke).

Euro fascist watch, Britain's not ceded from this:
www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/trump-brexit-le-pen-geert-wilders-far-right-new-age-of-fascism-a7602336.html

Comrades at the Daily Mail headlines revolt agains tory budge:

"No laughing matter: Chancellor litters budget speech with wisecracks... but breaks manifesto pledge by hammering self-employed and savers with £4.7bn tax grab (oh, and your insurance bills are going up, too)"

"Spreadsheet Phil's Budget? Incompetent, no vision, anti Middle England... and he didn't mention the word 'Brexit' once, says PETER OBORNE"

"Yet again, a Budget that ignored the issues that will beggar our children, writes MAX HASTINGS"

"Spreadsheet Phil, so full of himself, was in danger of gloating: QUENTIN LETTS sees a Chancellor flirting with hubris"

"Dividend disaster for one million family firms and freelancers: Workers face paying up to £1,100 more in tax because of way they take their income "

tory budget, whoops.

Knives out for Hammond I see.

Sterling not a happy bunny either. Part of this is strong dollar related (my $ earning OH is on a roll) but it's looking a bit sorry for itself vs the euro too.

Amused to see that the Express first went with "pound soars as chancellor delivers budget" then quickly changed the report to "pound crashes".

Tide is turning.

I think tories and tory press( JRM is amongst rebels too) are having their GOP moment; they realise what they've done. Too late?

Hmmm
Papers certainly are interesting today
Only the DT mentions brexit at all 🤔

I have no sympathy
They have sold this country down the river to slake their own ambitions
Mimsy bastard quisling fucks

Misti another explanation for the lack of preparation re. customs - a combination of ignorance, incompetence and arrogance. They have no idea of the practicalities of trade / they are too busy with other things to have thought about it / they are ignoring any warnings they get because they come from "experts" or people with the wrong attitude to Brexit / they regard making policy as their job, making it work on the ground is someone else's remit.

Patti their lack of preparation, risk management and planning seems to be a central feature to everything they do. Certainly have shaken off the image of being competent

Competent?????
Hahahahahaha

very quiet in the brexit arms theses days.....
🤔

Theses???

these

It's too early for correct spellings