Westminstenders: And so it begins

[RedToothBrush]

Promises made that can not be kept.

We have already fallen at the first stumbling block: the desire for parallel talks on exit and future relationship that May wanted has been rejected. Not that this is a surprise seeing as we were told this.

This isn't two years of negotiations for a good deal. Forget any suggestions that it is. It's two years of damage limitation and domestic pr.

For both the UK and EU.

I do believe that May's attitude - which seemed to be more friendly in her speech and letter yesterday - has burnt all our bridges.

This talk of the world needing the EU's 'liberal democracy' isn't aimed at the EU though. Her use of the words that produced uproar in the HoC yesterday was deliberate. Why use it? It was always going to produce a reaction.

When May says she will have a consensus at home to achieve this goal one of two things must happen: to prove just how much we need the EU to make a political reversal possible at the expense of her head or to vilify the EU to a point that Remainers suddenly change their mind.

To get a good deal for the UK she can not satisfy her hard line Brexiteers. It is impossible purely because to do otherwise is like breaking the laws of physics. Trade is done mostly with who you are closest too. This is the inescapable truth. We are leaving the EU but not Europe as keeps being pointed out.

If we want to trade we have to accept EU regulations. If we do not, we do not trade. Rules we can now no longer influence by must obey.

We can not reduce immigration. We have had control of non-Eu immigration and that is not going down due to skills shortages. To combat this schools are getting less money.

In terms of sovereignty and British parliament we just gave that away. The 'Great' Repeal Act is a power grab by the executive. It seems to give the powers of the monarch to Mrs May and take them away from parliamentary scrutiny. At the same time we are forced to become beholden to Trump's America. A man who screws people for a living and has not a shred of honour.

Using security as our bargaining chip misses the obvious. If we do not cooperate we endanger Brits abroad and ourselves domestically. Are we really prepared to stop?

The opportunities of Brexit Britain are bleak. This will be normalised.

Good luck folks. We are gonna need it.

Ruth Smeeth MP @RuthSmeeth
Ken Livingstone's actions are despicable and dangerous. Today's outcome has shamed and degraded my party. I am utterly disgusted.

Bet no MP makes a stand against it though.

www.itv.com/news/2017-04-04/jeremy-corbyn-media-utterly-obsessed-with-question-of-my-leadership/
Jeremy Corbyn reacts angrily to question about his Labour leadership from 'utterly obsessed' media

Love that itv did an interview with Corbyn and he got angry at being unfairly treated by media after comments this week about Labour being too slow for deadlines. We've played the 'where's Jeremy?' game before on these threads.

I would suggest that this might also be a good test of that leadership. I wonder if and when Jeremy might comment on Ken...

@MichaelLCrick Mar 27
Unite threatens to report Spellar to Info Commissioner claiming many McCluskey nominations came from dormant branches & may not be bona fide

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/27/unite-leadership-battle-sees-labour-factions-line-up-against-each-other
Mc Cluskey against Coyne.

Who wins to lead Unite may also weaken or strengthen JC's sexist anti semitic little cabal, which used to be called the labour party.

Karen Pollock @KarenPollock100
1/ Holocaust denial, distortion, obfuscation, revisionism - all forms of hatred against Jews. A deliberate attempt to belittle and undermine
2/ tragedy of Holocaust and murder of 6 million Jews. Most pernicious form of antisemitism. This has been given a new lease of life today.

Chief Exec of the Holocaust Educational Trust

In reference to Livingston.

Yvette Cooper @YvetteCooperMP
It's not enough to say the words "zero tolerance on antisemitism" - Labour has to put them into practice. Shameful decision today ...1/3
If our rules are weak enough to allow today's decision then our rules & enforcement codes aren't strong enough & must change - urgently 2/3
Shadow Cab & NEC need to review this decision, the rules & enforcement urgently - goes against all we stand for on fighting antisemitism 3/3

Sigh...

Thanks for posting the Pollock tweet. True. It's a gift to the EDL and Banks from labour.

John Woodcock MP @JWoodcockMP
This pathetic Livingstone sentence is an important moment Labour members: do we stand for decency against this or are we part of the decay?
There is no third way. Baroness Chakrabarti's defence of this appalling decision just gives the impression that our party has lost its way.
It hasn't, or at least the decent majority of Labour members who don't want to share their party with repugnant anti-semitism haven't.

(Without any degree of irony Anna Soubry is retweeting this one)

"The former London Mayor caused further controversy on the first day of his disciplinary hearing after telling reporters that the Nazi’s infamous SS set up training camps so that German Jews “who were going there [Palestine] could be trained to cope with a very different sort of country”."

Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes
'There is a website which counts the days since Ken last mentioned Hitler' @wesstreeting tells #newsnight

The whole newsnight interview is the sound of Labour digging its own grave.

What a dick.

End of, should be out.

Know him, and his left wing Cricklewood lot a bit, all of them have descended into conspiracy crap in recent years. Must be the age.

Wes Streeting is not a happy bunny...

(@DannyCohen)
Holocaust deniers will celebrate the Ken Livingstone decision. That tells you everything you need to know.

howlongsincekenlivingstonementionedhitler.com/?og=1
How Long Since Ken Livingston Mentioned Hitler Dot Com

That there are morons like Livingstone, is no surprise. But that the tories aren't able to handle their brexit morons and the labour party is run by them is the tragedy and a political disaster.

Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff
The Labour party's only hope now is that nobody actually watches the news. And I absolutely don't mean that as a criticism of the news.

I am being subjected to 24/7 BBC coverage and it is driving me up the wall, especially all the oxygen given to the would be Minister for 1588. Tonight there was a nostalgia fest around Harry taking up his Mothers land mine cause followed without any signposting of the irony or shame by coverage of May selling cluster bombs to the Saudis, thus ensuring that the work of making civilian lives safe in war zones will go on for another generation.

The former Business Secretary on why we are left with only that sort of option after we have turned our back on trade with our neighbours, realise that the former colonies will continue to focus on theirs and four trips to India were rendered a waste of time by May's immigration policy, even before she found that out for herself. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/india-britain-trade-charm-offensive-business-neighbours?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It's a big ask of the EU to set up some kind of associate membership because the UK got the hump

Maybe they're showing consideration for the 48% of EU citizens in the U.K. who voted remain. It's about time someone did.

Duterte, eh?

The UK now officially bottom feeders.

x post with RhuBarbarella

Meanwhile, in Europe ...

I'm starting to think the previously unthinkable: Le Pen may not make the second round of the French presidential election. She got taken apart on last night's TV debate.

If I'm right, that will be three blows against the far right (after Austria and the Netherlands) with another still to come (Merkel or Schultz).

I wondered that. Macron and Mélenchon seemed to do best, I thought (and the polls seem to be saying that).

It would be extraordinary if the final round came down to centre versus left.

If Hamon continues to collapse then Melenchon and to a lesser extent Macron will be the beneficiaries. It's still not impossible that Fillon makes the second round though. I think these debates make him looks terrible (supercilious and short-tempered) but there is no doubting that he has a strong social media push. Looking on Twitter early this morning all the paid cheerleaders were for Fillon; not many French at work at that time of day so I assume that he is now Russia's favoured "stop Macron at all costs" candidate.

Yes I think Fillon would be the only possibility to replace le Pen as second candidate and he didn't do anything to redeem himself last night. I also wonder how much le Pen supporters would be swayed by a debate. I think her support is more visceral than that.

Emily not convinced about that: she has a hard core of neofascist voters, but the rest are just the left-behind and the anxious-middle, who support her populist rhetoric but not her policies, notably on Europe. Read this:

www.20minutes.fr/strasbourg/2042831-20170405-presidentielle-village-o-marine-pen-cartonne-2012-fn-toujours-cote#xtor=RSS-149

It's about a village with one of the highest FN votes in France. The interviewees all said that while they still like Le Pen, they don't want to leave the Euro or the EU. Explicit reference is made to brexit (even among these FN voters it's perceived as a mistake).

Small sample, but I think the FN tide may have turned.

Small sample, but I think the FN tide may have turned.
I'd hoped that this alt right performance art in britain might bring some positives.