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."

lh there was an obvious point that brexit was barely mentioned in the budget at all. Couldn't go giving the impression that the land of unicorns will have to be paid for by the masses now can we?

Death during deportation:
www.theguardian.com/uk/jimmy-mubenga
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23244203

Death during detention:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jan/13/investigation-after-third-death-in-uk-immigration-detention-centre

Death following deportation:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4500626.stm

To be fair woman12345 - there have also been lots of protests in Scotland about Dungavel.

gruffalo if one has been working for two years and has been in the uk for 6, they can't not get permanent reisdency UNLESS they also have taken a 'comprehensive health care insurrance'.
If their husband/wife is from another EU country and satisfy the 5 years in continuous employment, then they can Apply as the spouse of someone who has the PRC.
If your partner is British and has been working all that time, you can't.
Yep, it is a DISADVANTAGE to be married to a brit to get the PRC.

Now, can they march you out of the country? Not at the moment, because, you are staying in the uk LEGALLY as long as you are self sufficient. Even if you don't have that health insurrance.
But the latest set of regulations the government has out together will lead to think that only the PRC rules are valid to stay in the UK. Even though according the EU rules it's not.
The big issue here is that having a private health insurance that is comprehensive cost A LOT of money. That a lot of people don't have.

red they're not here for serious discussion, save your energy

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.

I don't know. I have long believed that May is waiting for public opinion to evolve, she's playing the long game I think. Making the public believe that she is more Eurosceptic than they are, so it's credible that public opinion is what ultimately pulls her back from the brink. Then she can say "I was prepared to deliver a hard brexit, but you changed your minds".

May is not that clever, but she and Hammond are not stupid either. She's also a sharp political operator: it helps if you are amoral and have no shame, of course, but she wouldn't be where she is without being reasonably competent at playing politics. We shouldn't overestimate her thinking skills but at the same time we shouldn't underestimate how devious she can be.

She will be helped, I think, by the coming fall in net migration, which will be economically damaging but will take some of the sting out of this issue.

I could be completely wrong but the government isn't behaving like a government with a hard deadline. Nothing concrete is being done about putting trade systems and infrastructure in place for brexit and there is no budget for it to be done. This tells me that either they don't realise that stuff needs to get done and quickly (not credible) or that they don't intend to do it at all. If they don't intend to do it, then perhaps it's because they know it won't be needed. Of course you might argue that destroying the economy is what they want. Maybe May is at heart an anti-globalist anti-capitalist. But Hammond?!

Btw, there are also a few articles about how the number of eu crizens in detention centres have increased a lot recently.
And how people are being put in detention centres for stupid reasons (one of them was for having a 'party' in a park, aka nothing illegal)

So the threat of sending EU citizens away like this is very clear. Because it's already happening.

You need to remember. If we don't talk about what happens in detention centres for non eu citizens, do you think we will talk about it for eu citizens? If we aren't bothered by detention centres all over the uk, do you think it will be an issue to use them for EU citizens?
The answer is more likely to be the standard 'well they must have done something wrong/be there illegally/why didn't they take the British citizenship anyway'

Hashi yes I know.
But the more we also tell the truth, the more we actually explain what is the reality, the better IMO.
Many people think that you need the PRC to be in the uk legally. You don't. But it creates a lot for confusion as to why some eu citizens don't have it and why they are still here if they don't.

There are some realities, like the fact that being married to a British citizen makes it harder to get a PRC, that few people know.
Sounds crazy doesn't it, esp as that PRC was about getting the British citizenship....

So my answer isn't really for people who might be here for an agenda. It's for all those who are reading (and there will be plenty) and might be only lurking.

It's not just our ports either.

The EU says. "According to Brussels, that is deeply wishful thinking. The EU’s highest-ranking mandarin for transport, Henrik Hololei, told the Guardian: “There will be no separate deal.”

The government says "The British government says it will continue to work closely with the industry, adding that it is in the interests of all European countries to maintain open air links – with British passengers vital, for example, for Dutch long-haul flights and Spanish tourism. A spokesman said: “The UK aviation industry is the largest in Europe, handling over 250 million passengers and 2.3m tonnes of cargo last year, benefiting both consumers and business in the EU and the UK.

“It will clearly be in the interests of both sides in the negotiation to maintain closely integrated aviation markets"

The fall out? "If cross-border issues are costly irritations to individual airlines, the bigger picture for Britain is more concerning. The Airport Operators Association warns: “If there is no agreement by the time the UK leaves the EU, the UK’s connectivity will be undermined and its ability to trade will be made significantly more difficult.”

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/09/brexit-airlines-worst-fear-preoccupation-legal-framework?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Where is the budget thread?

There seem to be 4 possible outcomes for Brexit:

1. May really does intend a no-deal WTO Brexit That means the Tory hard right have won and will remake the UK. The UK would become a money-laundering tax haven for the rich, paid for by low wage, low regulation, low welfare for 90+% of the population E European workers will no longer come, but plenty from developing countries will

Still looks the most likely option, but more people are starting to realise what this means for the country and the Tory party is getting scared

2. A compromise with the EU They won't give everything the UK wants, so there will be some UK concessions that will cause problems to May from her right and from the tabloids. Such negotiations would take years, so the govt will need to request the negotiation period be extended - which the E27 may not agree to.

However, the EU may just stick to the 4 pillars, including FOM - it is by far the easiest option for them politically and they won't be hit as hard as the UK by a no-deal Brexit.
They might agree to financial passporting for 2-3 years, until they can reproduce City of London services they use.

It could be May intends to repeat tactics of her great "victory" as Home Sec and take the UK out of everything, then negotiate back in step by step.
That would probably mean a long WTO transition period as 1)

3. Massive Climbdown by May. She plans to let the 3 Brexiteers and the country realise the consequences of WTO and admit that the govt can't get a special deal.

Then it will be EEA / EFTA as Norway - we don't have several years to negotiate like Switzerland.
Even that might require a time extension, because it doesn't automatically bring services & financial passporting that the UK needs

Revoking A50 and remaining in the EU would be such a humiliation for the Tory party it is unlikely. However, the Corbyn/ Labout meltdown helps, because there isn't an alternative govt. No, I don't think UKIP could get in under FPTP in those circumstances.

Our first thoughts when she appointed the 3 Dunces was that she was making those who caused the problem realise that they couldn't deliver.
Problem is: Fox wants WTO to destroy the welfare state, Bojo would never put the country before his career, Davies is too dumb to realise the real harm to so many people.

However, most Tory MPs are Remainers and she could rely on the SNP and enough Labour MPs to pass any A50 revocation
A thought: constitutionally, the PM may have the emergency fallback to revoke without Parliament.

4. The govt are too cowardly to face facts / too incompetent to realise them / realise too late Depending on whether / when they realise this, either possiblity 1 or 3 will happen.

Misti As much as I would like it to be the case that we are headed for the best case post Brexit scenario of EFTA/ EEA access, I really think the Tory right wingers are completely deluded about the extent of British power in the negotiations and the practical realities of crashing out. All that is being signalled is that Brexit will be guided by dogma, hence the determination to leave anything European even if it is not actually the EU eg Eurotom.

Wrt Hammond, when I worked in a role that came into contact with him previously I know he was seen as being relatively fair and broad minded. He's obviously a shrewd operator too but he's one of the few who still aren't banging the brexit drum. He's saying words alright but always nuanced. I can't imagine him as a secret world burner. Could be wrong though!

It isn't that the EU wants to cut off air links, or other things that benefit them too:
It's just that agreements are often too inter-connected to be able to pick out the bits that everyone wants to keep.
We need more time

Don't read the Budget thread if you are likely to be too depressed at meanness of spirit:

Apparently the UK must free the "animal spirits" of entrepeneurs by cutting NI for everyone - and financing it by cutting international aid

(aid is increasingly used to give funds to UK businesses anyway)

Going back to Gracegrape's comment last night at 23.31 about the shock to society of the 2 World Wars and how we're reverting to the "old" order.....

It reminds me of being on a high level health service management training course in at the Health Services Management Unit at Manchester Uni in November 1991 and being told by Robert Maxwell of the Kings Fund (that's why I can remember the date as it was the same time that Sir Robert Maxwell disappeared ) that the NHS had been built on the experiences of WW2. That WW1 had started to break down the barriers but that WW2 had truly broken down the class barriers and created a sense of societal responsibility which created the momentum of support for the NHS and the Welfare State.

He then went on to say that since then society had been progressively moving back towards individualism and away from collective responsibility with the exception of Scotland

I remember looking around the room (about 20 of us, all supposedly high performing people from industry who'd been encouraged to join the English NHS at a high level on a special pilot initiative with specialist extra management training and exposure to the best of NHS strategic thinking) and realising that every single one of us was either Scottish or Scottish Uni educated

It is sad to see his analysis progressing towards its inevitable conclusion

The UK would become a money-laundering tax haven for the rich

The idea that a hard brexit automatically benefits the rich is false. These people are company directors, they are shareholders, they have pension funds invested in British shares. The destruction of trade will cost them personally. Some of them are too stupid to realise this, and some of them are not, primarily, motivted by money. But I do not believe that Britain's monied class will, as a group, willingly agree to make itself poorer in pursuit of some ill-defined political objectives.

Ron yes, May has a lot of really thick, really deluded and really ideologically committed backbenchers to deal with - indeed, if I am correct that this is primarily a piece of political theatre, that's a big part of what this is all about.

I have no idea what the outcome will be - May may well have miscalculated, but I think it is clear from government behaviour that they are betting the house on a soft brexit, at least for a prolonged transition period. There is no evidence whatsoever of preparation for a hard brexit let alone a crash brexit (consulting and talking shops don't count; budgets, public procurement contracts and preliminary works would be much more persuasive).

Wrt Hammond, when I worked in a role that came into contact with him previously I know he was seen as being relatively fair and broad minded. He's obviously a shrewd operator too but he's one of the few who still aren't banging the brexit drum. He's saying words alright but always nuanced. I can't imagine him as a secret world burner. Could be wrong though!

I have colleagues who know him quite well (from his previous government roles) and who have quite a high opinion of him: intelligent, listens to evidence, good at the big picture.

As an aside, I think that increasingly hardline immigration policies support my conjecture.

Immigration is key to May's strategy: if net migration can be driven down, then she will have much more room to manoeuvre (especially once the negative impacts of falling immigration make themselves felt).

Found the Budget thread - mixed comments, I see.

From the HoC report that someone linked to yesterday, it very much looks as though May wants an EFTA agreement. She has already said that she wants to be part of the European Arrest Warrant. She would probably have to ditch pulling out of Euratom - it's too dangerous not to, but does she realise that?

But you have already got Martin of Wetherspoon admitting that immigrants are needed! I wonder if he sees the connection?

Misti/Elena - I'm not convinced TM has the temperament to back down graciously. She has boxed herself (and us) into a corner and comes across as a very brittle character and not one that could cope with the loss of face that a U-turn would entail. Look how she kept fighting giving Parliament a say in triggering A50 even after a lot of Tories had conceded it was the wrong thing to do. Look at the way she has cut anyone off at the knees who has mildly criticised her/expressed a different opinion.

Out of Choc's four options, the fourth sounds the most likely (but I pray I'm wrong).

Hard Brexit benefits a subgroup of the rich - vulture capitalists who just slash, burn & loot. They are driving the hard right who are in the ascendency atm

The traditional Tory business supporters - and donors - (whom one could regard as the "productive" rich) would lose significantly.

It would be more accurate to say Hard Brexit doesn't benefit anyone who isn't rich and would hammer anyone reliant on the state

I'm not convinced TM has the temperament to back down graciously.

She's not going to back down! She will be pulled back from the brink by public opinion. She wants to be in a position to say "I was prepared to deliver hard brexit; you changed your mind".

Whether she has the temperament to pull it off is another matter. I'm not saying we will get a soft brexit. I'm saying that's what the government wants (for all the posturing aimed primarily at backbenchers and newspaper magnates).

Good point, Misti, so in this scenario she'd be like the drunk swinging punches after throwing out time, screaming "Let me at them!" while secretly relieved that some kindly passers-by are holding onto her jacket stopping her getting too close to the other punters?