Westministenders: Danger of "accidental" Brexit (whoops !) ?

[BigChocFrenzy]

i.e. Brexit without a deal - NOT intentionally so - due to UK govt incompetence and mutual UK/EU misunderstandings

The govt is proceeding from abysmal ignorance on a Brexit journey which may blunder into disaster.

Prominent Leave campaigner Richard North:

"The UK Government's narrative seems to rest on the belief that the EU will cave in under pressure, and is thus giving every sign that it is prepared to push negotiations to the wire.

If, on the other hand, the EU are determined not to budge, especially as, with their own White Paper on "The Future of Europe" triggering internal discussions unrelated to Brexit, they are not necessarily fully focused on the "British problem".

As a result, we could end up with an "accidental Brexit",
where the UK negotiators overplay their hand, ending up in the UK leaving without an agreement, forcing it to rely on WTO rules.

Most likely, it will take very little to convince the EU that Mrs May is bluffing – as the effect of the WTO option is likely to be disastrous for the UK economy.

We could thus have each side misreading each other, making the accidental Brexit all the more likely."

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86395

DavidKenner
After airstrikes killing as many as 200 civilians, Iraqi officer says rules of engagement relaxed under Trump.
<a class="break-all" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/middleeast/us-iraq-mosul-investigation-airstrike-civilian-deaths.html?referer=t.co/fNhYV8XXG6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">mobile.nytimes.com/2017/03/24/world/middleeast/us-iraq-mosul-investigation-airstrike-civilian-deaths.html?referer=t.co/fNhYV8XXG6
U.S. Investigating Mosul Strikes Said to Have Killed Up to 200 Civilians

Brandon Friedman @BFriedmanDC
This is a huge story. If true, it's likely the largest massacre of civilians by the U.S. military since Vietnam. And Iraq is blaming Trump

Will the UK go down this route too? Humanity is so last century.

Rumour is Osborne was not first choice for Evening Standard. It was Johnson but he turned it down. Or that's what is being said. Osborne applied for job only after friend asked for advice about applying for it if you remember...

Re: electric cars. Sounds good. The German government have committed to getting rid of combustion engines in cars by a certain year (i forget which) in an effort to promote green economy though. This means all manufacturers in Germany will be doing the same thing in switching to electric though perhaps not with tax breaks to support it. The passing of the policy by the German government produced an interesting response in the media here: it was virtually ignored probably because at the same time they were going on about how the German government was beholden to the car manufacturers and would not do anything radical to upset them in Brexit negotiations.

It's therefore not a terribly radical policy. In fact it's more reactionary since Germany have effectively already said that their strategy is going to aggressively push electric automotive industry. The question for me is perhaps whether the British government will support this in other ways - it does not sound as aggressive as Germany in reality. It sounds more like it's trying to effectively under cut them and it sounds more of a threat to French car manufacturing than German. There is another point here: we perhaps should have this strategy regardless of Brexit anyway because of what is going to happen in Germany. Brexit might merely be forcing the hand which needed to happen anyway perhaps a couple of years sooner than the government would otherwise get round to it (perhaps a brexit positive but not a great indictment of Tory policy and thinking either)

The solution to many problems in major cities does come from electric and self drive cars. It is likely this to become the way people get to work in driverless taxis rather than necessarily owning your own car. MN will lose its endless parking threads.

What we are not seeing is any thought about all the people this will put out of work.

The focus is on business and not on the social consequences. Which is Conservative thinking all over. When are we going to have that conversation about technology? The one that talks about why some councils only have sixth form for example, and how that affects both opportunity, access and aspirations.

Re passports: when applying for DS's first passport 2 years ago, it asked for details about his grandparents including if memory serves - their passport numbers. At the time i thought it excessive. In hindsight rather sinister. We are not on great terms with DH's parents. It did get me thinking what if we couldn't get that information from them or what if they were criminals of some sort? Or what if they had never applied for a passport? Would that put DS on a watch list from age 6 months? Purely because of his family? (I guess the government knows we are 'liberal elite' travellers.)

This is the thing, people talk about Nazis and how they listed Jews. The government already in effect have that. It's a question of what they do with that information and how they are allowed to use it. As I've said before DH and i would pass the 'indigenious' test with flying colours but that doesn't make me comfortable with it. I know far too many people for whom that's not the case. Example: friend married to Algerian who had trouble with home office to the point that mp has been involved previously. They tried to go on holiday to Spain a couple of years ago but he was refused due to bizarre visa issues they didn't know existed to do with Schegen. They are avoiding going to Europe on holiday now as it's such a saga. They instead go to North Africa or long haul to south East Asia. They have a young son. Is he British enough and will his travel pattern raise flags? Who is to say that 'innocent' information might not be used against us eventually regardless of how British you are or aren't but in some other way. (EU data protection law important here)

The assumption is constantly about how if you are a good citizen you have nothing to worry about. Again a conversation that gets drowned out in the hysteria of othering.

Thats dreadful hashi

I might need to stop reading

Would it not be easier for dad to put himself on the birth certificate

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/26/observer-editorial-triggering-of-article-50-jeopardises-60-years-of-unparalleled-peace?CMP=share_btn_tw
The Observer view on triggering article 50

Let's be honest. The next two years are purely about expectation management, preparing the country for a catastrophic shock and blaming the EU for it.

That's long enough for that. It's not long enough for negotiations and we know it. The government knows it. That's why they have no intention of doing it.

It would have been rufus but the guy is a bit of a twat laid back on such matters . Poor dc.

Gorton By Election. From Manchester Evening news journalist:

Jennifer Williams @JenWilliamsMEN
Unhappy anecdotes floating back from the Lab campaign trail in Gorton. There are far too many undecideds, according to 3 different sources.
Brexit a 'massive issue' according to one. In white working class areas people 'not voting or not answering the door' says another.
All three report longstanding Lab voters witholding their votes. Still nobody saying Lab could lose, bt predicting massively slashed maj

The previous voting pattern does suggest the potential for Labour to lose here, is possible and realistic btw. Expect the LDs to run this closer than being suggested.

Theres no accounting for twats

Thanks for this link, Red. A depressing read.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/26/observer-editorial-triggering-of-article-50-jeopardises-60-years-of-unparalleled-peace?CMP=share_btn_tw

How long will the dawning realisation take, that it's going to be nothing like was promised?
Months, years, decades...?

Semi I agree that the 1982 date on passport applications is not arbitrary, but it has the same effect for younger people.

Re: stories about passport applications. BIL, a pensioner, has given up applying for a British passport. He is as English as you ever get, but was born in a British military hospital abroad. As he thought he was classed as foreign-born on the form, he simply couldn't work out what he was meant to do and lost interest anyway. Nothing wrong with holidaying in Blackpool, he said.

Ian Dunt‏*@IanDunt*
Three significant Brexit stories in press today. One, Starmer very significantly hardening the Labour Brexit line now A50 bill passed.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/26/labour-keir-starmer-brexit-exact-same-benefits?CMP=twt_gu

Only way May could meet Labour demand is promise of future comprehensive FTA & full transitional deal, which would include free movement.

Two - Sunday Times story (can't access link) on EU migrants benefits. Shows that even though everyone says citizen tit-for-tat deal uncontroversial, there are areas of difficulty there on non-residency rights (ie benefits, NHS) and timing.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4350138/EU-nationals-set-rights-benefits-Brexit.html

Mail and S.Times coverage shows it's not uncontroversial at all.

And three - great repeal bill white paper published Thursday with details on statutory instrument powers

www.nwemail.co.uk/news/national/article/EU-member-states-to-act-together-at-different-paces-leaders-agree-b6d41a5b-f8f0-4f8a-99d5-66cc852f86a9-ds

Press starting to get a handle on quite how much of an executive power grab this could be. But promises of 'temporary' statutory instrument powers make little sense. All stat instrument powers are temporary in that they apply to a bill. The changes they put in place are not.

Hopefully white paper will put our minds at rest, but I very much doubt it. Right that's your misery sorted, I'm going to play in the sun.

From Mail article above:
EU nationals 'are set to keep rights to benefits after Brexit' amid fresh row over broken Tory manifesto promises. Compromise deal could see EU nationals keeping rights to benefits after Brexit. Ministers are hammering out approach to protect Britons living on continents but reciprocal arrangement could breach two Tory election manifesto pledges

The Tory Manifesto Paradox: The one where the spirit of the manifesto that Hammond had to keep, but May doesn't have to with the Single Market nor EU citizen rights. (not that I'm complaining on the latter). Forcing Hammond to back track, in the way he did, might have unintended consequences....

Playing in the sun sounds a good plan doesn't it?

What happens if you cant name all your grandparents

Dont get a passport and youre not British?

This is where i get worried about people getting too wrapped up in being able to prove heritage going back to william the conquerer

Most of us cant

I cant prove my heritage from one grandparent

And in the old days (and now) people were quite often brought up not knowing who their real father was and it would be impossible to do a dna test

Mirror Politics‏*@MirrorPolitics*
Home Secretary accuses Apple's Tim Cook and WhatsApp of giving terrorists 'a place to hide' #Marr

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/home-secretary-accuses-apples-tim-10101528

Remind me why Brexit supporting Conservatives are using WhatsApp again, Mrs Rudd?

Lets be honest, there are plenty of other ways terrorists could communicate other than via WhatsApp. They will just switch tactic and you'll have to spend time adapting to the next strategy, whilst other people lose their security.

Elena, as far as I'm aware, If born in a military hospital abroad, and one of your parents is a British citizen you're not classed as foreign born - the established military bases abroad are classed as sovereign base areas so therefore British Soil.

Re: the Guardian story - the Labour party finally works out that supporting Brexit might be a bad thing. Tell me, Sir Keir, has the Labour party sorted out a position on the Corn Laws yet ?

Rufus I am no expert, but if you put "passport application form grandparents" in Google, there are a lot of hits even on Mumsnet.

Does Keirmer's hardening stance count now? Isn't it a bit late? Sorry for the defeatist tone.

Semi That is what I thought, but BIL was just deflated. A lot of people find passport applications forms stressful and frightening.

Rufus, I know.

I've just had an argument with a friend about EU bureaucracy. Much of this is British in origin, and we enforce it more than other countries anyway.

Increasingly it looks like its the British who love bureaucracy and want more of it to stop X bad thing, and can not cope or have no consideration for anything - or anyone - who does not fit in a nice neat box.

If you don't conform, you are an outsider and not part of society.

Its almost as if May WANTS citizens of nowhere.

Bureaucracy itself is the thing that confuses and deters people and there is much to suggest this is a deliberate government strategy to effectively disenfranchise or marginalise certain groups.

People who are eligible for benefits, passports, citizenships are not able to navigate their way through the system to get what they are entitled to. The government don't want them to.

From the Observer editorial:

The ultra-hard Tory Brexit break with Europe that is now seen as the most likely outcome when the two-year negotiation concludes is the peacetime equivalent of the ignominious retreat from Dunkirk. It is a national catastrophe by any measure. It is a historic error.

Recollect though, despite being a catastrophe for the British Expeditionary Force, and an betrayal in France, how we portray the 'Dunkirk spirit' as a sign of how wonderful we plucky British are. I am not denigrating those who went over in small boats, nor the Army evacuated, who I know were brave, but it's not gone down in history as the debacle it was.

So maybe with leaving the EU. Or maybe in twenty years time, we (England) will be back petitioning the EU for admittance, and it will be the full works of Schengen and EU currency?

Is an 85 page form to apply for residency a world record? The form I had to fill in for a country with far more restrictive immigration policies was much shorter.....

The last time I applied for a passport I did it in person, the women on the desk were sending people away for the slightest issues, in my case six times because my passport photos all taken in the booth on site weren't quite right, too high in the booth, too low in the booth, and in one case "too white" and then twice because I had not get my signature entirely in the box (I am dyslexic, my writing is big and messy), so basically for not colouring in the lines. I had an easy time of it from what I saw of those applying without the benefit of a previous British passport. You could only get that degree of obstruction from a certain sort of culture.....

Peregrina, I have a feeling you're right. But we'll never get a deal as good as the one we have now.

Oh and in the end she made me sign the form again in front of her, like a teacher would a small child....

Ron the nice man in Brexit supporting Timpsons took my guaranteed to pass passport photo in 2 minutes. It took 5 minutes to apply online and a week for the new passport to arrive by post. I sometimes wonder if I live in an alternate UK reading some of the stuff here.

Peregrina what with the Observer and Heseltine worrying about leaving Europe to the Germans I sometimes wonder whether it is the Remain side which is anti-Europe.

howabout I don't doubt it, the lesson learned was not to do it in person in London, next time I will do it online or perhaps go to Leeds or even the Consulate in Hong Kong where they bent all sorts of rules to get my daughter a replacement passport when hers was stolen. The point I was making though was that these women clearly feel empowered to behave that way. I did complain and got a reply that they would receive training in how to treat people with disabilities, which rather missed the point......

Peregrina what with the Observer and Heseltine worrying about leaving Europe to the Germans

You clearly neither heard or read what he actually said.