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 can't help wondering if this budget is a ploy. We have to pay for Brexit somehow, but of course we can't discourage big business so lets hit the workers hard now and attitudes may shift. No one voted to be worse off.

But that would suppose there was some competency there.

Maybe they've seen Golden Dawn's imminent gains? Badders

Macron has modest lead atm. I know there's a serious possibility of Le Pen getting in by default, they all stand to access power by default.
This is the time. It is the window to stop this malarkey across Europe.

The GOP bottled it when they could have unseated Trump, and now look at what Bannon and Pence are doing, it's easy to see what Hammond was signalling.

The extreme right are a well funded and canny minority.

If I felt strong enough I would write you all an essay on birds coming home to roost for post colonial powers like the Dutch, the English and the French...

But I'm sure someone much cleverer and more erudite than me has already done it?

The rise of the far right and backlash against North Africans, Asians and those from the ME in these countries Is a direct result of their colonial past

Imho

"We invaded you. We subjugated you. We took the oil, the diamonds, the coal, we made whole regions politically unstable but how dare you come here expecting to be treated as an equal?"

I've depressed myself now

patty/ widow I don't buy the idea that lack of preparation is just down to incompetence. There are now plenty of MPs with some understanding of these practical trade issues, notably all those who have sat on brexit subcommittees. I also don't believe that "spreadsheet Phil" doesn't get this.

There are people in and connected with the Tory part with considerable real world business experience as well as knowledge of major civil engineering project timelines. There are also companies lobbying including the road transport and air lobbies. Many MPs will have substantial shareholdings in exporting companies.

Sorry, just don't buy it. There was incompetence and ignorance at the start, and there's still a fair but of incompetence, but they've been hearing evidence for 9 months now! If they are not acting or even budgeting to act, it's because they have no intention of leaving the CU in 2019.

Quite. I wouldn't get too excited about the press backlash - presumably it's tax cuts rather than rises that the Mail et al were holding out for.

Do you mean just walk away with no deal?

So, Misti, do you think that TM will go into negotiations, storm out, the full implications of crashing out of the EU without a deal will be made very clear to the public and they will demand that we back away from the cliff edge? I hope you're right.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/uk-budget-deportation-jamaica

Posted that link on another thread.
That's the state of immigration control in the uk.
Planes booked in adavance months ago so they have to be filled whatever way.
People sent back home even though they are still appealing etc...
Families split.
No care in the safety of people who are sent back.
Targeting specific countries of origin (the article mentions Jamaica for example)
That's the current state of the immigration process in the UK.

I'm starting to wonder if its not even worse than what DT is doing TBH.
And unlike the US. No one is saying anything at all

Most people think no immigration is a bad idea...

It won't happen.

Well sending people back to their own country illegally is already happening....
And immigration isn't just the eu it's also non EU countries.

Regardless of the country of origin, treating people that way is just unacceptable. Brexit or not.

lala I am trying to be optimistic here, but this our way or the highway attitude of TM is surely just for the benefit of hard Brexiters. TM is ultimately not an idiot, she must know she cannot push us over the cliff edge. Would she want to be Queen of Ashes?! - to quote Varys on Littlefinger in the Game of Thrones.

Sharing this excellent blog from Owen Tudor of the TUC -

touchstoneblog.org.uk/2017/03/new-institutions-needed-address-concerns-migration/ calling for:

• sectoral wage and training councils (the last remaining council - the Agricultural Wages Board was abolished by the conservatives in 2013);

• a Migration Impacts Fund

• proper enforcement of the national minimum wage - with better resourcing of the NMW team at HMRC and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority.

If you are an EU national that has been here for say 6 years, your partner has worked here for the whole time and you have only worked for the last 2... is it best to get permanent residency, or will you be ok as you have been here for more than 5 years (let's assume there is a way to prove it such as kids at school)
Can they just march in and send you home, even although we are still in the eu? Surely not unless you are a criminal or something

RedAndYellowPeppers Agree, it is much worse than US, and there are so far fewer protests. US is shocked by detention centres, and they have been here for years. Only Yarls Wood has had protests.

I was really appalled and not surprised, by the post by some one with a close knowledge of HO strategy in targeting the sick, old and disabled to forcibly remove.

Deaths during deportation haven't been followed up.

Definitely worse than what the US are up to . TM's government: brought to you by far right loons and the word Insidious

In the NL while the facist Geert whateverhisname is will probably win, he will not have an outright majority.
It also sounds as if nobody will deal with him to form a coalition, so the country will be in a mess after the election.

Support for Geert Wilders in the Netherlands has massively collapsed in the last few weeks, his party is now third:
mobile.twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/839590438801707014

There will simply be a new coalition, the country won't be in a mess at all! The Express has an agenda to promote far right groups, hence this news story.

Badders you should write that down, you are right about the colonialism, can now see that in in the deportation strategy amongst other things.
I didn't spot it, the testimonies need to be written.

Deaths! Jesus!

To return to the parallels with Thatcher, her brand of dogma meant that there were several occasions when to effectively implement the policies she was proposing required advanced planning, but she refused to allow it to happen until she had actually officially made the decision. I was involved with two, a potential privatisation, and a public sector venture to protect market share. In both cases sensible steps were taken to put together teams to plan the implementation in league with the Permanent Secretary (most senior civil servant) at the DTI who tried to keep it under the radar but when Thatcher heard of it via puppydog Lilley, it all had to be disbanded. No matter that in one case it meant that when it came to it the arrangements were in chaos, valuations were done on the back of a fag packet, one typo error that put a figure £300m out nearly made it to the final signed document, and the deal the government achieved was not as good as it might have been. In the other case the opportunity was lost.

She tried the same with the military powers ahead of the Falklands War , after they started mobilising the troops. She wanted to stop that until she had actually declared war. They stubbornly refused her orders - and after a weeks stand off with the signs staying up in the railway stations she declared war.

So it would not surprise me at all if May is refusing to allow the implementation of advance planning whilst she is still hoping the British people believe she will deliver the unicorns in her white paper......

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

There is a thread on MN - currently at 159 posts - where people are venting their fury. But not one has made a connection to Brexit.

But unless people can show they believe this would have been in a George Osborne 2017 budget, it must be obvious what the reason behind it is ... someone has to pay that bill.

missmoon what a shock to see the likes of the Express making a molehill that doesn't bear semblance to the actuality of the situation. It's almost like they have form