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.

'The simple fact is that you have changed your mind... and I have not'.

Will become a thing.

(From Heseltine's letter).

Math With due respect, whilst NI has it's extremists in both directions, the fact that in the ROI the Catholic church has such sway over policy is a real turn off to moderates of every religious persuasion and none in NI , which is why the move to integrated schools, and the move to greater tolerance, and inclusion, in faith schools (the exclusivity being aggressively fought to be retained in the UK, and ironically less so in ROI, would not rightly be tolerated in NI) has been so strongly supported.

Have governments always been this ignorant and we never noticed before, because Divine Intervention or the Civil Service rescued them in time ?

I think they used to be more wary of the will of the people, when we had unions and legal elections and all. This is what happens when they don't give a f.

The civil service is decimated, and god probably doesn't believe in herself anymore.

And there's always been bad greedy fuckers, but they just got their guns back.

It's like the opposite of Blazing Saddles when the black sheriff tells the cracker "I'm your worst nightmare".

Now we have crackers as sheriffs and serf masters.

And NI DUP is cracker central.

'The simple fact is that you have changed your mind... and I have not'.

Nothing wrong with changing your mind when new facts are presented to you. Changing your mind a la Theresa May because it's keeping the Tory party together, or "it's the will of the people" are not reasons as far as I am concerned.

Have governments always been this ignorant and we never noticed before,

Basically ... yes.

As long as the ignorance was scattergun and only affected small pockets of the population in any one instance, it was manageable.

But Brexit affects everyone - including the next three generations.

Re the Irish question - DIL from Irish stock says that younger people now on both sides of the border are much less religious, so the Churches have much less influence. It's certainly true in her family - the older ones go to Mass without fail at least once on Sundays, the younger ones go to Church for weddings or christenings.

I suspect govts have always been a bit shit, but since they rarely have much of importance to do, it rarely gets noticed.

Yes and Brexit is actually far more complicated than many other grave decisions, like say going to war

Yes and Brexit is actually far more complicated than many other grave decisions, like say going to war

Against 27 countries ....

Answering my own question

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_2_and_3_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland

So as part of the GFA, the claim was dropped.

Presumably, if the GFA is invalidated, they could be reinstated ?

On the thread about the fine for election expenses, the Tory Mumsnetters are quite open about not caring if their party won the GE by fraud.

We got the usual "they all do it" and the interesting new anti-elite line of "it's right that the party should pay all the expenses, or only rich people can canvass"

If my party were in this position, I'd be demanding that those responsible face the full penalty. I would not be minimising and excusing them.
< well, I'm an uncommitted centrist, no party, but you get the idea >

I think the church itself doesn't influence policy (at least any more) in Ireland. I can't recall any being td's either (mp's). Lots of Protestant Rev's in politics in NI, even since it's creation. Maybe more in the past. Rev. Ian Paisley! I think a huge amount of the DUP are free Presbyterians. And Young earth creationists. Was it in NI or the american bible belt that they wanted Creationism taught in science class and treated just as validly as any other theory? Have they taken the young creationist theory that god created the world a few thousand years ago from the explanation for the Giants Causeway yet?

I must admit the problem is that the fundamentalist guys are absolutely barking and very obvious. Edwin Poots, Wells. And they make these huge moral judgements.

Schools are an issue. Growing number of 'educate together' in Ireland. Irish language medium schools. They get good funding. When the national school system was first introduced in the island of Ireland, everyone wanted their religious fiefdoms. What has transpired in NI is that a lot (if not most) non catholic schools became controlled schools. However, instead of really being secular they are the de facto protestant schools. Look at the boards and there will be a rev or two from protestant churches.

"Controlled schools are managed and funded by the EA through school Boards of Governors (BoGs). Primary and post-primary school BoGs consist of representatives of transferors - mainly the Protestant churches - along with representatives of parents, teachers and the EA.

"Nursery, grammar and special school BoGs consist of parents, teachers and EA representatives along with DE governors. There is a growing number of controlled integrated schools."

www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/types-school

The other side of the coin are the schools that didn't become controlled are probably Catholic. However, Catholic schools are doing really well academically. So, I imagine people are eager to send their children there.

Of course, people's attitude to abortion provision is very restrictive in both parts.

The GFA is an international treaty, isn't it?

Brexit has made IrishReunification now a serious topic in the RoI - and in the USA diaspora again

"Nationalists, it has been generally agreed, should shun triumphalism and be sensitive to unionists, struggling to adjust to losing their Stormont majority after almost a century.
And yet up the road from Dublin, instead of the usual delicacy about unionist feelings, comes talk of planning for reunification.
That’s Micheal Martin’s promised White Paper"

"Opinion in the Republic, in particular in the political class, usually hears talk of reunification as dangerous, threatening stuff. ...
Now Brexit is cited as reason enough to be considering unification.
In a measured way, as a political exercise, as statesmanlike Enda has tried to stitch it into EU thinking,
so that Northern Ireland rejoins the EU as of right if Ireland is united."

www.irishnews.com/opinion/columnists/2017/03/14/news/fionnuala-o-connor-as-brexit-looms-it-suits-the-south-to-talk-of-reunification-962722/

The GFA is an international treaty, isn't it?
Says it is here:
contract-law.laws.com/treaty/good-friday-agreement

Just on that diversion. I suppose the mirror in Ireland is that as most schools, certainly in rural areas, are Catholic schools. They end up catering for everyone. You do have schools for other denominations as well, of course. Mostly towns and cities.

What I think is interesting is that the religious schools system in Ireland has churned out so many atheists. In fact atheists who are immune and have an iron armour against any type of bullsh*t proselytisation.

Yes, the GFA is a binding international agreement and the UK govt could be taken to an international court, if it were to break the provisions.

To be exact, the GFA is made up of two inter-related legal documents, both agreed in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April 1998:

• a multi-party agreement by most of Northern Ireland's political parties

• an international bilateral agreement between the British and Irish governments (the British-Irish Agreement).

Just wondering how it could be invalidated? i think the Supreme Court said that it was not dependent on members being in the EU. Would all the signatories not have to agree?

Mind you, nothing would surprise me at this stage.

Theresa May will frustrate Nicola Sturgeon’s hopes of a second independence referendum for as long as six years as she draws the battle lines for her defence of the “precious, precious Union”.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/16/theresa-may-tells-nicola-sturgeon-no-new-scottish-independence/

Is she having a fucking laugh or declaring war? 6 years?

TV debate would be a laugh though.