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.

Ooopps here's the link

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-so-unpopular-in-london-that-even-labour-supporters-think-he-is-doing-badly-a3504146.html

Funny comments on that article poorboy. I don't think GO is getting a lot of London love.

howabout - I don't want to put the full responsibility for answering questions about Scotland on your shoulders but are you sure that Scotland only has 200,000 EU nationals living there. A friend has recently moved to Edinburgh with her Spanish husband and mentioned by the by that there are 20,000 Spaniards living in Edinburgh alone .

I have a feeling George was happy to approve that article.

Source for you lala. Most of the media coverage on Scottish Brexit has been from outside Holyrood. EU Nationals are heavily concentrated in Edinburgh, whose overall population is approx 500k against 5.5 m for Scotland and 2.5 m for the Greater Glasgow economic area. The other footnote is that there is also a heavy concentration in the Universities, both in students and academics (moot point whether students should be in the numbers at all).

www.parliament.scot/ResearchBriefingsAndFactsheets/S5/SB_16-86_EU_nationals_living_in_Scotland.pdf

Thanks, howabout. According to that document, there are only 9,000 Spanish nationals in the whole of Scotland so I don't know where my friend is getting her information from . I'm amazed that the immigration figures are so low Scotland generally.

I am also loving the ES reader comments. At least they've still got their sense of humour

I have the same feeling, Poundland. The insurrection starts...

A lot of Scots can trace their ancestry back to Spain in the distant past through the Spanish Armada but I think also due to links from the Spanish civil war. Perhaps this is part of the discrepancy as even 100% Scots tend to reference their heritage in much the same way that loads of Americans claim to be Scottish.

The insurrection starts... Indeed. GO will turn out to be quite the fifth newspaper columnist, I do believe.

Possibly, but I think GO is guilty of over-reach - there is a lot of chatter about him not only doing two jobs, but also - on his first paid day at the Standard - doing a highly paid speaking job in Europe. There is now I believe some push to regulate what work MPs can do alongside their parliamentary role, and about time too.

GO may have a role to play in how brexit plays out but it's also possible that the ES role is political-career limiting, if people get cross enough about MPs earning three salaries.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/03/sadiq-khan-and-george-osbornes-unlikely-friendship

More goss

That's a very interesting link Howabout. I was though at the average hourly rates: £11.20 for Scots, £8.60 for EU and £13.20 for non-EU

Speaking of shipwrecked Spaniards, we think dh is descended from one: he has dark hair, black eyes and very olive skin, like his dad and his dad before him: Scottish (or possibly Irish) for many generations. Surname is unusual but might have Northern Irish roots (so could still have been the result of a shipwrecked Spaniard )

Is David Lammy not interested in climbing the greasy pole then?

"That is interesting BUT as we have seen with Brexit London doesn't reflect the rest of the country - damn them liberal elites/working class/under class"
^ this.
He will need a lot more time to get anywhere, regardless of polls. It's a division at an entirely different level that Brexit has highlighted in Labour and its voters in different parts of UK. And it will be very big mistake of Khan and his backers to misjudge that and overestimate his popularity.

Someone has been threatening to release a dubious tape of Georgie in a compromising position on twitter this week.

She has previously had column inches in the tabloids - she might just be in it for the money and fame on the back of hot air. On the other hand she says she's going to release it and Osbourne will have to sue.

If she is legit I almost can't help but feel that someone has been in touch and offered to pay any legal fees that might arise. GO has upset both the political establishment and the media establishment, afterall...

At present, I'm perhaps leaning towards the later rather than thinking she's just a chancer. Tatton is a safe seat. A by-election there, isn't going to though up any nasty surprises for the Cons. Indeed Survation did a professional poll of the constituency last week.

Knives in the back are an occupational hazard in the Conservatives aren't they?

ARRRRRGGGGHHH rtb I have not had enough wine yet to cope with the thought of a dubious GO tape [sick]

www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/treasury-committee/news-parliament-2015/collapse-in-confidence-cds-16-17/
Chair's Comments
Commenting on the correspondence, Mr Tyrie said:

"In just 67 days, confidence in the successful implementation of the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) – a project that HMRC itself describes as 'business critical' – has collapsed. On 25 November 2016 it was given a 'Green' rating, meaning that it was 'successful' and 'on time'. On 31 January 2017, it was given an 'Amber/red' rating, meaning it was 'in doubt', with 'major risks', and needing 'urgent action'.

Customs is at the heart of the Brexit debate. It is part of the essential plumbing for international trade, and ensuring it continues to function smoothly post-Brexit has to be a priority for the Government.

The CDS is needed in order to handle a possible five-fold increase in declarations that could occur when the UK leaves the EU. The consequences of this project failing, or even being delayed, could be serious. Much trade could be lost. The project, therefore, merits a high degree of scrutiny by Parliament.

I have written to the Infrastructure and Projects Authority to ask them for their latest assessment of the state of the CDS project. I have also written to Nick Lodge, Director General Transformation at HM Treasury, for further information on the risks to the project. The Committee will also want to see the contingency plans, in the event that the CDS is not delivered on time."

I'm trying to think just how "compromising", compromising positions need to be these days to metaphorically kill someone off in politics these days.

I'm assuming willfully destroying an economy with broad-spectrum deception is considered OK these days; security and sex stuff worked out for Foxy and BJ...Vaz is still enjoying his nice new HoC role. Even the pig thing for Cameron...not a problem. And George has already has a few alleged recreational habits revealed already....

What's left...or have I just led a sheltered life?

Who's planning to spill the goodies, Red?

Re: Cambridge Analytica

Louise Mensch is tweeting about this article and is on a general rant about Facebook this evening:
www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/211152/trump-data-analytics-russian-access
Will Donald Trump’s Data-Analytics Company Allow Russia to Access Research on U.S. Citizens?

But what’s worrisome is that CA, as The Wall Street Journal reports, is not just relying on public records:
Cambridge Analytica is surveying tens of thousands of Britons across the country on issues including partisanship, personality, and their concerns about EU membership. The company will then fuse those findings with other publicly available data on voters to produce advice for how “Leave. EU” should target their messaging more specifically through multiple channels.

Between “big data,”cyberwarfare, and new levels of detail in election polling, Americans ought to be thinking seriously about who owns the firms that collect this data.

And because CA is linked to U.K. property mogul Vincent Tchenguiz, who himself has connections to Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash, a Putin protégé (and Paul Manafort business associate) it’s possible the information CA collects might be shared with people who are not friendly to American democracy—not that Donald Trump thinks there’s anything wrong with Putin, Firtash, and others like them.

My eyebrows have been making friends with my hairline throughout the piece. Worth a read.

Even if you discount the Russian element there are some issues here. The current dinosaur led government are struggling to tackle modern technology issues like this.

I mean... why the fucking obsession with WhatsApp? Why not other communication methods? End to end encryption just stops others seeing everything that people are doing and thinking. Oh.

If this is about taking back control, there are other issues the government should be looking at. Well if it really was about control for the people and this country as a whole rather than just for a select few.

(Co-incidentally Palmer Luckey who was on Facebook's board and was secretly funding alt-right memes on the platform has departed from the company in the last 24 hours Background here )

What was Dominic Raab saying again? Wasn't it something about getting rid of our data protection rights, and going down the same route as the vote that the US just passed, post Brexit.

That sounds a really great plan doesn't it? What could possibly go wrong?

Poundland, I don't really want to give the woman oxygen. She's well known and easily googleable.

Why Gibraltar should be shitting their pants. Johnson just made them a promise...

The PM is clear that Gibraltar is covered by the exit negotiations so this is why it wasn't mentioned in her A50 letter, and furthermore, there is absolutely no recognition that there was an overwhelming vote to stay in the EU.

Knives in the back are an occupational hazard in the Conservatives aren't they?

As are prostitutes...

Brexit: Gibraltar angered by Spain's 'veto' www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39453535
"An EU source told the BBC the inclusion of the Gibraltar issue in the document had come after lobbying from Spain." Sooner we leave our EU "partners" behind the better.

Hashitag, this post is not for you. DO NOT READ ANY MORE.

It seems its not just Conservatives with the prostitute problem. Allegedly.

Not to be outdone by liberal leaning Osbourne, Farage has his own sleazy front page of the Sun tomorrow.

The Mirror are also carrying the story:www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/porn-star-claims-nigel-farage-10136687
Porn star claims Nigel Farage kissed and groped her in booze-fuelled liaison on jumbo jet at 30,000ft
Valerie Fox, 30, claims she and Farage got friendly in upper class on a Virgin Atlantic transatlantic flight

Its 22:47pm. The publish date is 31/3 not 1/4 on web publications.