Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Brexit

Westminstenders: And so it begins

991 replies

RedToothBrush · 30/03/2017 08:30

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
14
RedToothBrush · 30/03/2017 22:04

www.economist.com/news/business-and-finance/21719761-probably-not-humans-have-lot-learn-equine-experience-will-robots?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/
Will robots displace humans as motorised vehicles ousted horses?

A new working paper concludes that, between 1990 and 2007, each industrial robot added per thousand workers reduced employment in America by nearly six workers.

You know how the US just ended Internet privacy, and it's been hinted at that it might happen here too post Brexit by Dominic Rabbit. Well these MPs might be wise to see how this goes...
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-privacy-cards-against-humanity-congress-internet-history-federal-communications-a7659146.html
Cards Against Humanity founder threatens to publish web history of Congress members in privacy bill protest

It would be amazing to see Boris Johnson's and Michael Hove's browsing history wouldn't it.

Imagine the uproar if the UK government did this - and made an exception for MPs....

OP posts:
mathanxiety · 30/03/2017 22:04

Great blog, BCF.

NinonDeLanclos · 30/03/2017 22:47

.

Cailleach1 · 30/03/2017 23:09

Rabb was on tv today saying (paraphrasing) that them important thing was that power was being returned to mp's in parliament who were accountable to the people in the country. Also, that parliament can scrutinise anything it wants.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-theresa-may-great-repeal-bill-sweeping-power-grab-new-laws-a7659086.html

"Theresa May has been accused of a sweeping “power grab” after unveiling plans granting her ministers the ability to rewrite reams of British law without full scrutiny."

It doesn't seem to tie in with all these laws being rewritten without scrutiny by parliament.

These guys are full of it. Mind you, I just see him sniggering away at one of his mates while Joanna Cherry was trying to question a truculent Davis in the committee.

EffinElle · 30/03/2017 23:48

Wine place marking

prettybird · 31/03/2017 00:00

Don't usually read the Standard but this seems a depressingly probably accurate assessment.

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/anthony-hilton-disaster-lurks-in-may-s-empty-bluff-on-trade-a3480301.html

"These will be the first trade talks in three generations where even the best possible outcome for both sides will be worse than that what currently exists"

HmmSad

BigChocFrenzy · 31/03/2017 00:00

Maths Richard North's recent blog warning about the effects of a "Botched Brexit" and the total inadequacy of this govt to the task, is also apposite:

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86420

"The media is gradually waking up to the disaster that is about overtake Brexit, although – as yet –
there is no recognition of the scale of what confronts us."

"We depend absolutely on imports for our physical survival – unlike the EU."

"As yet unreported is the drastic lack of capacity in the EU's Border Inspection Post system....

UK food exports, involving any fresh meat, products of animal origin (including cheese and other dairy products) or vegetable product, will effectively cease from Brexit day onwards"

"The real problem is the ro-ro traffic, the 16,000 or so truck per day which rely on roll-on, roll-off ferries"

"On the day [Brexit] as the system slows down, the queues start.
Vehicles late going out become late returning.
But, as the system backs up, the ferries and the trains are unable to discharge their loads.
The queues then start the other side of the Channel and the system grinds to a halt. "

"neither British nor EU ports have the space, never mind the facilities, to park large numbers of lorries.

If no positive deal is secured around the negotiation table, then within hours of Brexit finally taking place huge traffic jams will spill onto motorways on both sides of the Channel."

"Just the technical problems alone require us to work on a war footing, with high-powered working groups and committees in action night and day to devise a solution, chivvied by a prime minister with "action this day" directives.

And that is what is really worrying.

Whatever else Mrs May is, she is no leader.

She shows no signs whatsoever of galvanising the resources of the state and making things happen to an impossible deadline."

"Effectively, already, it is too late to minimise the damage.
We are now bound to take a hit...
For my part – and for many like me – we need to say that this is not what we voted for.
It is not what we wanted.

The Kamikaze Brexiteers may revel in the destruction they are seeking, but the best we can say for them is that they know not what they do.

At its worst, a botched Brexit could rival the Great Depression in its effects on the UK economy"

"Destroying our external trade is as good a way as any to trigger an economic depression.

Our Brexiteers seem determined that we should have one.

Our government seems happy to give them one."

NancyWake · 31/03/2017 00:18

Place marking Gin

SwedishEdith · 31/03/2017 00:19

Has this been posted yet? The ink's not dry yet and the fuck-ups have already started.

Westminstenders: And so it begins
NancyWake · 31/03/2017 00:28

Does that mean they're not considering a transition deal at all? Or do they mean after the transition deal? Do they know what they mean?

SwedishEdith · 31/03/2017 00:34

I read it as they don't know, never occurred to them.

BigChocFrenzy · 31/03/2017 00:44

We may freely post
"they don't know, never occurred to them"
in response to any query about govt policy on Brexit

NancyWake · 31/03/2017 00:53

Looking at pics of the front bench today I thought they looked like the staff of a piss-poor private school. Davis teaches PE, Rudd - pottery

If they were in charge of a school I'd be concerned. But this....

Imjustapoorboy · 31/03/2017 00:59

Bigchoc it is sad that lefties like me are actually wishing the Tories had a Major or even a (cross my heart)Thatcher in place now.

As I have said before I may have disagreed with them. And many times hated what they did. But I never questioned that they (how ever misguided in my view) where dedicated to their country

This load of muverfuckers disgust me. Pure unadulterated power crazed bastards. Hold me back!

NancyWake · 31/03/2017 01:04

To be fair to Mrs T I think she was a power-crazed bastard herself. But she was a sensible, astute power-crazed bastard.

This lot are just thick.

Imjustapoorboy · 31/03/2017 01:09

Agreed that she was bat shit...but in my view. She would have laid down and died before risking the union and her country

These fuckers would shove us all under the train then ride off with the spoils

BigChocFrenzy · 31/03/2017 02:58

I mostly agree, poorboy

MrsT completely and permanently changed the direction of the UK away from the post-WW2 consensus of a comprehensive welfare state, paid for by higher income tax.
Not the politician of choice for a centrist like me.

However, to do her justice:

  • She had genuine principles that she thought best for the country and she had the intestinal fortitude to stand up to her party for those principles.
    She smacked down the Tory "big beasts", left & right, when necessary to achieve those principles.
    May's only principles are to cling on as PM and to appease the powerful hard right in the Tory party & media.

  • MrsT had spent years working out her plans for office, before becoming PM
    No major UK politician except NS had a post-Brexit plan.
    May had a post-Brexit career plan.

  • MrsT was a talented & inspirational party leader, who could successfully cajole or hammer ministers and often even the EEC, Reagan, Gorbachev et al, to do what she wanted.
    May was a mediocre Home Sec, promoted as PM to far above her competence level.
    Her stridency is from weakness and fear, not strength

  • MrsT had a pool of talented Tory "big beasts" to choose for her cabinet
    We have "May's Minnows"
    Imagine MrsT trusting Loathsome to run a bath, never mind a whole govt deoartment.
    Or appointing a Foreign Sec who managed to get stuck on a high wire to the laughter of the world and looks like doing so again.

If MrsT had been landed with the task of Brexit, it would have been done as competently as humanly possible.
< but still would have been worse than what we have now >

Peregrina · 31/03/2017 06:24

Whatever else Mrs May is, she is no leader.
She shows no signs whatsoever of galvanising the resources of the state and making things happen to an impossible deadline."

100% agree to this and to Big Choc's post immediately above at 02:58.

Looking at pics of the front bench today I thought they looked like the staff of a piss-poor private school. Davis teaches PE, Rudd - pottery

I have always thought that May should have been Headmistress of a little Independent school for girls - the sort of girls who are nice, kind, but not too well endowed in the brains department.

RedToothBrush · 31/03/2017 06:58

Big news from US last night. BBC are reporting that key claims from the Steele Dossier have been verified. Noting here that its the BBC who generally are careful in sensationalism compared to other journalistic outlets.

Also Flynn has asked for immunity to testify. We have a squealer...

The BBC article is here:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39435786
Trump Russia dossier key claim 'verified'

It covers a lot of things but this paragraph is interesting:

"This is a three-headed operation," said one former official, setting out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal damaging emails from senior Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by thousands of automated "bots", then on Russia's English-language outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US "news" sites such as Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly, Russia downloads the online voter rolls

The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of "microtargeting". Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.

This starts to raise other big questions to me relating to the UK. Cambridge Analytica is one. Trump's ties to Banks and Farage are another. Which of course leads on to the likes of Leave.EU and Vote Leave. Just who was giving advice to who - and how? Who paid for what? Is all the money clean?

The developments in the US not a huge surprise if you've been following on twitter, but the way things are lining up it's getting more and more suspect. And credible.

It might not happen yet but impeachment looks slightly more likely than it did yesterday.

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 31/03/2017 07:06

Bosses at HMRC have admitted that the Customs Declaration Service which is due to be implemented at the start of 2019 would not be able to cope with the fivefold increase in checks if we end up outside the customs union.

FT carrying story on front page about it today.

Gosh if only someone had seen that possibility...

Oh.

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 31/03/2017 07:11

HMRC customs have a new system due to be implemented at start of 2019. FT front page reporting that they have said if we end up outside customs union it won't be able to cope with fivefold increase in checks needed.

Who'd have thought...

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 31/03/2017 07:12

Sorry thought that hadn't posted the first time

OP posts:
RedToothBrush · 31/03/2017 07:23

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/30/uk-article-50-letter-european-diplomats-threat-security-cooperation?CMP=twt_gu
UK moves to calm European nerves over post-Brexit security cooperation
EU diplomats in London are offered reassurances that security remarks in article 50 letter should not be seen as a threat

Well it looks like Brexit is going well already...

OP posts:
Imjustapoorboy · 31/03/2017 07:49

May is finding week one that it's farceasier being in the tent pissing out than outside it pissing in

Those pesky EU types also know how to play the medja better than the donkeys. And the whole world is watching them

If you take the EU'S collective brain power and compare it to May and the stooges its like comparing a planet to a grain of salt

When do you think it will dawn on them they need to roll over on almost everything? Donkeys

BigChocFrenzy · 31/03/2017 07:52

Malevolence or incompetence ?

Always difficult to tell with May and her govt
Often it's both !

From red's Guardian link, is Rudd exhibiting both again ?

"The UK home secretary, Amber Rudd, whose responsibilities include intelligence and security, also denied there was a threat, but told Sky News:

'If we left Europol [the EU’s law enforcement agency], then we would take our information ... with us.'

It is understood she had been dispatched to counter the media narrative that the UK was threatening the EU, but she instead gave it further fuel"