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.

Well, they won't be 'servicing the jets' - they will be servicing the engines.

It's a multinational setup - not just a UK thing.
Exactly the same as Typhoon etc

"It's a multinational setup - not just a UK thing."

Like the EU?

I notice the fact that the UK had fuck all say in the matter has been glossed over ...

But then since the UK is now subservient to the US anyway, probably for the best.

Britain's new aircraft carrier will operate as a fully fledged offshoot of the US Marine Corps, the UK's ambassador to the US accidentally confirmed on Thursday. (contd)

You know I am starting to wonder if there's been a terrible mix up, and some dictionaries with the word "Sovereignty" mis-defined made it into the wild ....

www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/06/ryanair-uk-flights-brexit-deal-wto
Ryanair 'will have to suspend UK flights' without early Brexit aviation deal
Falling back on WTO rules without a bilateral arrangement would be ‘disastrous’, says airline’s finance chief

So the government won't make an assessment of what 'no deal' means and how bad that might be.

Businesses can though. In fact, businesses will HAVE to.

TatianaL I will never forget the level of disgust I felt watching Harriet Harmon defending her decision not to oppose GO on the 2 child limit. Her excuse was that it was popular on the doorstep with women who felt themselves to be "doing the right thing" while others had DC and claimed benefit. If you need proof look at the comments on the Panorama thread from last night. Women are often the worst offending misogynists. - I have no idea why.

I'd rather not look it's too depressing.

The women who are, in the main, likely to bear children who were conceived by rape are women living in abusive relationships. In these cases, the expert said, they could not tell anyone in authority that they had been raped as it is a distinct possibility that the child (and its siblings) could be removed as the mother would be seen to be putting them at risk. Moreover, iirc, child benefit would stop anyway as it cannot be seen to advantage an abusive parent.

Absolutely. They can't claim the benefit if they're still living with the perpetrator. So in order to claim they would have to leave the relationship while pregnant - leaving them open to further abuse.

This was not debated in Parliament, despite the fact that Scottish MP (can't remember her name off the top of my head) raised it repeatedly.

This was not debated in Parliament, despite the fact that Scottish MP (can't remember her name off the top of my head) raised it repeatedly.

This was in a country with a Prime Minister who says that she wants a country which works for everyone. Why then, was she not leading the debate against it, or do women in abusive relationships and their children not number as 'everyone'?

Yes, RTB, they will. There have been more and more vocal rumblings from business. Most of this gets reported as "Representatives from X sector have called for reassurances ..." but alongside that, they are,obviously, having to make plans.

I keep hoping that the news of X financial firm warning of 100,000 job losses and a move of trading to a European location, or calls for clarification from air companies will, at some point, exert some sort of force on the government. It doesn't seem too, though.

All hope that the silence, and non-deviation in message, was some sort of strategy to 'keep cards close to the chest' evaporated with news of the walk-out from the Select Committee.

They genuinely seem to be acting in a way that is going to blow a massive hole in the economy. It's not rational.

"A country which works for everyone" - everyone of her "sort"

I agree with howabout about the disgraceful surrender by Labour to the benefit cuts
Cutting benefits probably is popular - judging by MN, not the Fail.
However, a party should stand by its most important principles and make an effective case for them, not curl up and surrender.
There are probably votes in racism too and opposing feminism

An Opposition in particular should fight for those who are not represented by the govt of the day:
"The duty of an Opposition is to oppose"

I keep wondering when the little boy is going to come along and say 'Look at the King! He's naked.'

Kevin Schofield @polhomeeditor
Huge drop.in number of English council seats being contested by Ukip next month - 48.4% compared to 73% in 2013.

Number of lib dems and greens contesting seats is up...

Ha!
Labour have 2 candidates nominated in Hertford & Cayton.

www.scarborough.gov.uk/sites/scarborough.gov.uk/files/files/Hertford%20and%20Cayton%20Division%20SPN.pdf

The Greens have nominated a lot of candidates but I know that in Oxfordshire many of them are 'paper' candidates. The UKIP nominations are well down, so the question is, where will that vote go?

Labour

In Oxford city they would probably go to Labour, and Greens have been strong in the past. In the rest of the county I expect them to revert to type and vote Tory. Unless they are just so fed up of the lack of action from the current crop of Tory Councillors, who seem to think that doing nothing for the people who elected them is the way to behave.

"Gibraltar sovereignty not up for negotiation, May tells Tusk"

Can anyone point me to where Tusk said the sovereignty of Gibraltar would be a matter of negotiation between the EU and the UK. Didn't they kind of say it was a separate matter for the UK and the Spain.

Is this for home consumption? Everyone going 'yeah, you tell them' on a matter that the EU had thrown off their negotiation table. They clearly said Spain has a veto over whether (from the EU's side) the deal with the EU and UK would be allowed to extend to cover Gibraltar as well. They are entitled to do that. The UK can say no, we would want it to have extended to Gib., don't want an offer with that restriction and walk away. The discussion is to be had among the UK side. Or with Spain itself. No point talking to Tusk about it.

Of course, Spain might not veto Gib. being included. As the UK won't be involved in decision making anymore, the EU can make many financial decisions that restrict certain type of investments in 3rd countries. Or Gib can benefit from deals elsewhere outside the EU.

I read somewhere that Spain felt they had lost investments to Gibraltar. Why as a member of the EU, would they not try and protect their own interests? Gibraltar are trying to. They did vote remain. But the UK are leaving the EU now and Gibraltar possibly won't be receiving any of the benefits extended to it from their connection with the UK.

www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/gibraltar-sovereignty-not-up-for-negotiation-theresa-may-tells-donald-tusk

With Brexit underway, EU drug agency prepares to leave London

uk.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-pharmaceuticals-idUKKBN1771XM

So. Who needs experts anyway, eh?

The talk about Gibraltar sovereignty in relation to the EU is a displacement activity to take attention away from the fact any transitional deal would come with FOM, ECJ etc.

And NI will have to be dealt with. When is that going to be mentioned?

Good article in the Guardian by Peter Hain talking about why he proposed Joint Sovereinty at the initiative from the person then in charge of the Gibraltar Govt. Spain got cold feet. So May has probably realised that the Tabloid hysteria was (being charitable) unhelpful. I notice that, quoting the BBC, Downing St said the PM "made clear" that "there would be no negotiation on the sovereignty of Gibraltar without the consent of its people". This is a very very long way from the jingoistic tone of the tabloids the other day, which of course, overlooked the fact that we would have had to ask one NATO ally to lend us an aircraft carrier to attack another NATO member. Who knows, the Gibraltarians might decide to dust down Hain's plans and see whether they would work now? The jingoists wouldn't have a leg to stand on, if the people went for it.

May is very fond of the phrase 'let me be clear'. Me and my friends have started counting how often she says it per speech. Usually, clear as mud would be a better description.

^^ The Scottish MP was Alison Thewlis, she raised the rape clause 25 times in Parliament but failed to get a full debate.

I will never forget the level of disgust I felt watching Harriet Harmon defending her decision not to oppose GO on the 2 child limit.

I sincerely hope that you reserve the bulk of your disgust for the men whose policy it was, rather than the woman whose policy it wasn't, who was between a political rock and a hard place (and if I'm not mistaken, in a party leadership role she never wanted).

Or do men get held to a different standard?

That's not to say that Harmon was right - she was very wrong, for the reasons that bigchoc articulates above. But she is guilty of heading an ineffective opposition, not of promulgating and implementing a deeply misogynistic policy. Let's be absolutely clear which of those is worse.

Alison Thewliss is a great MP - that was who I was referring to earlier. So much more effective than the Labour MP she replaced, but having to fight against the intransigence & insensitivity of the Conservative Government and the inconsequentiality, ineffectiveness and invisibility of the Labour Party.

Is this for home consumption? Everyone going 'yeah, you tell them' on a matter that the EU had thrown off their negotiation table.

Basically, yes. May may be pretty useless at her job but she's proving very adept at "look! squirrel!" politics and exploiting the short attention span and low information status of most of her colleagues as well as her electorate.

She's already pretty much conceded on both of her pre-A50 objectives (FTA in 2 years and no FOM) without anyone noticing! You've got to hand it to her...

Misti you'll get no argument from me there. With or without Brexit getting rid of DC and GO was a fantastic result. Turning back the tide of divisive bile they unleashed is going to take longer and is not helped when they have apologists on the "opposing" benches.

There was no rock or hard place. Labour had just lost a GE on an austerity lite manifesto and HH was not seeking to build a Leadership position. There was NO excuse.

You also have to hand it to the Brexit press who have been happy to promote squirrels.

EU won round 1 by making May give up the single market. It's now won round 2.