Westministenders: Its time to fire the starting gun. At our own heads.

[RedToothBrush]

Its time for the suicide. The note will say simply, "The EU made us do it".

David Davies, says that despite May’s assertion that no deal is better than a bad deal for the UK, that actually we don’t know this as he hasn’t got round to quantifying the impact of no deal.

He still has no answers for anything apart from “I dunno” and “I’ll do it later”. I can’t wait for when the dog ate my homework excuse.

After 9 months. That’s how far we’ve got. Brexit negotiation skills will have 18 months (not 2 years as it’ll need to be ratified). We are still hiring people for the Brexit department. What about all these EU agencies that the UK will have to replicate and hire and train up in 2 years time?

I’m still waiting for Davies to tell me what all these potential benefits he keeps going on about are too. Benefits for who exactly? Ah yes we know the answer to this one too, even if its not being said. Its political elites and elites with lots of money who can consolidate power and enslave the population through debt and desperation. Goodie. Just what I’ve always wanted. As long as I can wave my Union Jack. Oh. Shit. Bugger.

Nicola Sturgeon, has been doing a good job of showing Brexiteers exactly what they look like to Remainers by holding up the mirror of irony to the Vampires of the 19th Century State. The sight of them tripping over themselves saying its irrational to hold a ‘blind vote’ and that the economic argument is flawed is hilarious. If you are not British.

Hammond has been forced to u-turn on NIC budget announcement as it was not in the spirit of the manifesto. What happened to the manifesto pledge to the protect interests in the Single Market. Lets be honest, the New Tory Manifesto read simply: “We’ll wing it and see what we can get away with”. I wonder how many people would vote for that.

Its Brexit at all costs. No matter what. We must keep the foreigners out. Even though Davis hasn’t done an assessment on the financial impact of migration. Just think about that for a second. Actually don’t because you might actually want to shoot yourself in the head.

At best the government are still relying on Game Theory as a basis for their negotiations and the EU are already going, “Er we don’t think so”.

Perhaps this is the intention of May’s tour to build consensus. She’s handing out guns and bullets to anyone who displays rational thought, to blow their own brains out.

May’s weakness is her manner and her chip on her shoulder for the law. Her own party are not immune to it. She seems to think trade deals are not done based on goodwill. May’s weakness is Britain’s folly.

Pass the blindfolds round, and get on your knees and await our own execution by our own hands.

Bang.

RIP The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. I will remember you with nostalgic fondness but equally with bitterness and shame. Our finest hours are long since passed (and were tainted with the excesses of exploitation anyway) and we must accept this as part of the process of ‘accepting Brexit’.

Now its time for the empty hand to start being shown and the blame game to begin in earnest. The politics of hate have only just begun and the divorce has not started yet. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar are the kids we might not get custody of.

We’ll be blacking up again, running around groping women like Benny Hill and pushing people back into the closet as we hit the off switch before you know it. As well as having nice shiny new ID cards we’ll have to pay for the privilege of owning and carrying at all times, to prove we aren’t nasty illegal immigrants or those equally nasty legal ones clogging up our NHS (by working for it).

Don’t worry though. Uncle Donny will save us. If he doesn’t die suddenly after eating a bowl of Russia soup or have a fatal heart attack after accidentally falling out of a tenth story window.

Some of those Spanish expats were relatively sympathetic, including the old bloke on a wind-up mission at the beginning, and the young people who'd been educated in Spain.

That sort of enclave is particular to Spain, the ones in France live in ordinary villages, albeit with their own often exclusively English speaking networks.

My tenants are a bit like that, to the extent one of them is currently receiving cancer treatment in the UK (because of the language barrier) - though I just spoke to his partner and she is desperate to get him back to France because she's so unhappy with his treatment :(

Still she delivered the rejection with charm and diplomacy. It's going well so far, doncha think?

I do think.

Misti what's your take on the state of play with French election? Reports were that Dutch results may affect Le Pen's chances?

It amazes me how anyone can live in France and not get completely submerged in fantastic literature, cinema, art culture all in French language. Btw, have you seen "Two Days, One Night"? marvellous French/Belgian Italian film on contemporary industrial practices?(on BBC inlayer atm)

Pension "upgrades" just means continuing to give the regular UK state pension increase to expats,

There is no guarantee that this will continue. It's definitely the case in Canada, Australia and New Zealand that the amount of your pension is frozen at the amount payable at the time you leave the UK or start to draw your pension, if already outside the UK. So someone in Canada who was awarded a pension of £52 in 1991 will still be getting £52 now won't get the £122.30 for the 'old' state pension in April 2017. (Old because the rules have changed and the 'new' pension offers a different amount.) At present EU and EEA/EFTA members get the uprating, but what guarantee is there that this will continue? None, I imagine.

There's been cases of Canadian/UK pensioners really suffering with that rule.Peregrina
www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jun/04/frozen-pension-raf-veteran-canada

BBC i player not inlayer

I just imagine the uproar if we saw a similarly proud and superior"ghetto" living in the UK on a documentary. It would be used as proof by the kippers that British culture is under attack!

Seeing that some people have been up in arms because there is one or Polish shops and they've hear some people speaking in another language, I'm sure they would find it unacceptable.
What I'm struggling with is the attitude that says that it's OK if a while village ends up having to speak English rather than frenc 'because it's good for business' but the same people were asked to learn to speak french (let alone Polish) because it's good for business, there would be an uproar.
I don't believe that the people who have made those comments were UKIP either. Just genuinely thinking that there is no problem with that whilst being unable to imagine how intrusive it would feel to have that in the uk.

T. May says on that video that it wouldn't be fair for the Scottish people to vote on independence because they would be asked to make a crucial decision without the necessary information or what the future would look like.

She is trying to keep her face straight there, right?

I don't think Theresa May does irony. Nor does she realise what a fool she is making of herself.

@krishgm
I'd imagine @NicolaSturgeon quite happy for Theresa May to play into her hands by trying to block #indyref2 - will help the yes vote

Callum McCaig‏Verified account
@callum_mccaig
Just imagine Brussels had told the UK that they are not allowed to have a referendum. That's the difference between Scotland's 'two Unions'

@callum_mccaig it’s not unionism, it’s colonialism

If Cherry and Durkan had been posh white men, would Davis have been so rude? Looked like racism yesterday, looks like racism today.
Better out than in.

@NicolaSturgeon 2h2 hours ago
One last point - if PM thinks we won't know terms of Brexit by autumn next year, she must think her own timetable will fail.

@krishgm
Even stranger that May's statement suggests she accepts Scots could get to judge her Brexit negotiation. rest of UK might argue the same.

Campaigning just started.

But wasn't that the whole point, to time it at the moment when the negotiations would be concluded but while we were still in the EU so that the electorate could make an informed choice?

Sturgeon says trying to block referendum would be 'untenable, undemocratic and totally unsustainable'

Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister, has now issued a press statement giving her response to Theresa May’s comments about a second referendum. It reflects what she said on Twitter earlier (see 1.35pm) but her language is slightly stronger. Here’s an excerpt.

It is for the Scottish parliament – not Downing Street – to determine the timing of a referendum, and the decision of the Scottish parliament must be respected.

It would be outrageous for the Scottish parliament to be frozen out of the process.

NS a bit cross now, just said:

"The Scottish government has a cast-iron democratic mandate to offer people a choice and that mandate must be fulfilled.

Any bid by the UK government to block the people of Scotland from making a choice will be untenable, undemocratic and totally unsustainable – and clearly shows that the UK government recognises it is out of step with the Scottish people".

www.express.co.uk/news/politics/780007/European-Union-run-out-patience-UK-Brexit

And Mr Pirzio-Biroli said the exasperated 27 remaining member states have had enough of the UK's failure to commit to the bloc's ideals and plans.

Writing in the FT, he said: “After years of British ambiguities, diffidence, equivocations, grievances and misgivings, which the European Union had to patiently endure, Brexit is the last straw in the tragedy of a Britain that could not make its mind up about Europe.

I think that this is a sentiment that is widely spread TBH.

"T. May says on that video that it wouldn't be fair for the Scottish people to vote on independence because they would be asked to make a crucial decision without the necessary information or what the future would look like."

Hahahahahahaha proper belly laugh. Lost.For.Words. Monty Python would have had a field day with May & Brexit.

She also deliberately chose to ignore the fact that NS specifically said in her Press Conference (which I listened to live, plus the follow up questions) that the timing - somewhere between Autumn 2018 and Spring 2019 - was based on TM's own Brexit timetable so that the Scottish electorate would know the detail of the Brexit facing the UK.

Unless of course TM knows that she's got sweet FA chance of concluding the negotiations within the 18 months to 2 year timescale and that we would be heading for the cliff edge

I discount any likelihood of a free trade deal; not happening on this timescale

I agree that a free trade deal is unlikely for a number of years

I think we'll go onto an interim EEA/EFTA deal while they thrash out an FTA - which won't be ready before mid 2020s. The transitional deal will keep the economy afloat and the Tories in power for a while.

If we were going to go on to a permanent EEA/EFTA deal they wouldn't have nailed their colours to the mast of a hard Brexit - FOM, no single market, and effectively no customs union - (their wtr customs aren't possible). May has backed herself into a corner. If she delivers soft Brexit now, which is not really leaving to many Brexiteers, it will cost her her job.

I feel a revolution coming on.

I wish.

Typed my last comment about 15 minutes ago and then ds got in from school so I had a wee chat with him before pressing Post. I see in the interim that others have made my point - including NS on Twitter!

Misti what's your take on the state of play with French election? Reports were that Dutch results may affect Le Pen's chances?

I'm not sure that it affects her chances directly, but it does suggest that Trump and Brexit may have made it that much tougher for extreme right wing parties to break through the glass ceiling.

Most of the English language commentary doesn't do a very good job of the French context and notably the electoral system which makes extremists hard to elect. Le Pen has a very steady 25% of the electorate in the first round, where she is standing against four other "serious" (as in, established though not necessarily establishment) contenders who split the remaining vote - Macron in the centre/ centre left at around 25%, Fillon the rightwing candidate at around 20%, and Hamon and Melenchon on the left who together get around 25%.

The question is whose votes she picks up in the second round, if she gets to the second round (and this isn't certain). Assuming Macron is the other candidate, about a third of Fillon voters will vote for her, but others will vote for Macron or stay at home. She won't pick up many votes elsewhere, as almost everyone voting for Macron, Melenchon or Hamon in the first round will be appalled at the idea of Le Pen.

She did well in the first round of the recent regional elections, but fell completely flat in the second round, and that was before her legal problems started, and before Trump. So while I'm nervous about the election, I also find it hard to imagine a credible scenario in which she wins.

Btw, have you seen "Two Days, One Night"? not much of a film person, sorry

The Express comments are beyond parody, ironic surely - the upper case presumably indicates banana emotion:

"I VOTED BREXIT BECAUSE I PREFER CURVED BANANAS NOT E.U. STRAIGHT ONES. THE E.U. RUN OUT OF PATIENCE WITH THE BRITISH WAY OF THINKING?. ADOLF HITLER ONLY WANTED ONE WAY OF THINKING AS WELL. UP YOURS E.U."

Theresa May has ruled out a second referendum huh?

If only it were that simple.

Despite what the BBC have been saying, that Parliament MUST approve a referendum, its not that clear cut. It was done that way in 2014 to avoid conflict, but legally who can call a referendum is unresolved.

See these two articles on the subject:
ukconstitutionallaw.org/2017/03/15/ewan-smith-and-alison-young-thats-how-it-worked-in-2014-and-how-it-would-have-to-work-again/
Ewan Smith and Alison Young: “That’s how it worked in 2014, and how it would have to workagain”

www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2017/03/franchise-question-timing-who-decides.html
Franchise, Question, Timing - Who decides?

This in theory means that there could end up being a (another) huge constitutional court case to resolve the matter as it has not effectively been settled who has the authority to call a referendum.

The alternative is that Holyrood potentially could call an unofficial none legally binding one. This is what happened in Catalan recently though the Catalan premier was subsequently prosecuted for doing so and banned from public office for doing so. Of course that's under Spanish law. UK law seems to have a precedent though...

David Adamson‏*@DavidAdamson2*
Gibraltar Gov held own ref on Blair/Hain covert joint sovereignty plans & sucessfully derailed them. (Secured a double lock)

An unofficial referendum could be boycotted to make it lack credibility, but even then you have a problem when you are spouting off about the 'will of the people' or 'mandate'.

The effect of Westminster being seen as hostile, provocative or otherwise undemocratic might not end terribly well.

Either way, even taking the government to court over the issue, whilst they are trying to negotiate a50 and are committing all their legal resourcing and lobbying to that seriously handicaps the government one way or another (one of the reasons May does not want a referendum during the a50 period, is precisely because she can not fight two big political battles at once).

There is a third option too. The SNP could collapse Holyrood for some reason and call new early Scottish Parliamentary election on the basis of a single issue over Brexit/Independence. This would strike me as something that May had little control over, and wouldn't be on her terms.

Whatever happens, May is definitely on the back foot here, and the mere fact she's said she would block a referendum betrays a real fear that the government could lose it. It also is likely to fuel Scottish Nationalism rather than put the matter to rest.

If Theresa May was a wise bunny, she would delay triggering a50 until the legalities of a potential Indy ref 2 were sorted out. I think even then, this is problematic - a) she would have to delay a50 and this would be a political nightmare for her (though could work in demonising the SNP) b) she could lose a court case and the Scottish Parliament might win the right to hold a ref on their own terms and timetable c) even if she were to win, there are no guarantees that the SNP wouldn't take the alternative option of sparking an early Scottish Parliamentary election. She is beyond the point of being able to give the Scottish Parliament assurance as so far she's paid so much lip service to the SNP. Unless its written down in law, it will not be trusted as she's burnt so many bridges. d) And as I say, hostile action towards Scotland will breed more blue and white faced Mel Gibson impersonators with fake Scottish accents shouting "FREEDOM" in homage to William Wallace in addition to the traditional tartan wearers. e) Beyond this at the extreme end, this is how to start violent protests against your government for oppression. Yes this might seem unlikely now, but would you bet against nationalist riots breaking out in the future as the Brexit process progresses or in the aftermath of Brexit if it all goes horribly wrong?

Perversely May - even in blocking a second referendum - could be paving the way for Independence.

May has backed herself into a corner. If she delivers soft Brexit now, which is not really leaving to many Brexiteers, it will cost her her job.

How many 'Brexiteers' are there? About 40 in her own party, and then elderly Tory party members mostly in the south east. May's twin interests are getting immigration down, and preserving the Tory party. The Tory party will stab her in the back as soon as they see her being an electoral liability. That doesn't look likely any time soon, and after 2020 they will have gerrymandered the boundaries. Nor do I think they are ready for a good bloodletting yet, although it's something they enjoy - the experience of the years 1997 to 2010 are still too fresh in their minds.

I just hope that Conservatism is not attractive to younger people and that they bring change about. My baby boomer generation are a sorry failure in that respect. (Well, not me personally, or my friends).

Misti A couple of French colleagues said that after Le Pen modernised the old Front National and kicked out the old guard anti-semitic loons, she managed to absorb almost all the old French Communist Party.
Do you also think that's where they mostly went, rather than to the traditional left ?