Westministenders: Transition

[RedToothBrush]

Last thread opener, it was all about the government buzz word being shown to listen at every opportunity.

Now transition is creeping in as people realise that no we can't just do a settlement, arrange a new trade deal with the EU and have a whole host of other deals in place in two years.

Who'd have thought.

We will be getting Brexit because we give in to threats of terrorism. Not quite getting how that takes back control.

But Brexit will be good. It will be glorious. And in the long term we will be better off for it.

Er ok.

emily m‏Verified account @maitlis 8m8 minutes ago

"Our economies are not strong enough to withstand unnecessary risks " @PhilipHammondUK #BastilleDay2017

Well, you know what you need to do, PH.

Trump's handshake

Ian Dunt @ IanDunt
My gentle, balanced, sympathetic take on Theresa May's first year in charge

Oh you know this is going to get good...

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/07/14/week-in-review-theresa-may-s-first-year-report-card
Week in Review: Theresa May's first year report card

The list of her failures goes on and on. They are moral, political, economic, strategic and presentational. She is a full-spectrum political disaster.

The Trump Macron Six Handshake Montage

Only a Frenchman and an American could get into this type of handshake off!

www.politico.eu/article/the-agenda-for-the-first-full-round-of-brexit-negotiations/
The agenda for the first full round of Brexit negotiations

This is theschedule for the negotiations according to an EU official (The exact order of events is subject to change):

Monday:Opening session and working groups
2:30 p.m. to 3 p.m.: Opening session on “Objectives for the 2nd round.”
3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.:Working groups on citizens’ rights, financial settlement, and “Other separation issues.”

Tuesday:Coordinators’ meeting and working groups
9:30 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.: Leaders of the working groups meet.
10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.: Meeting on Ireland.
3 p.m. to 6 p.m.: Meeting on governance.
10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.: Working groups on citizens’ rights, financial settlement, other separation issues.

Wednesday:Working groups
10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.: Working groups on citizens’ rights, financial settlement, other separation issues.

Thursday:Coordinators’ meeting/closing plenary/lunch/press conference
9 a.m. to 10 a.m.: Leaders of the working groups meet and debrief.
10 a.m. to 11 a.m.: Coordinators meet toplan future negotiating rounds.
11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: Closing plenary session.
12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.: Working lunch — EU Brexit negotiatorMichel Barnier and U.K. Brexit SecretaryDavid Davis.
2:30 p.m.: Press conference.

Gosh. That reads like a particularly tedious and unpleasant conference programme.

I do so hope that the EU negotiators spend the entire week rubbing the Brits' faces in their own shit.

I am so over this. Genuinely hope that when the shit hits the fan, it mostly sticks to Tories and Brexit voters.

It won't stick
They are like fucking teflon
It'll be "our" fault remoaners

I was intrigued to see the news that the UK had finally admitted it will have to pay a settlement bill.

Even the lowest figure quoted - £40 billion is going to give some leavers a reason to not leave, when public sector pay is going to have to stay capped for the foreseeable future ...

DD is certainly less....martial (?) Than he was a month ago...

It won't stick
They are like fucking teflon
It'll be "our" fault

YY Martell I believe this is precisely what will happen.

.

Delurking. I accidentally clicked on a Telegraph link today and I had seriously not realised how very bigoted the Telegraph is.

Here are some of today's headlines:

Top UK university replaces busts and portraits of bearded white scholars with ethnic minorities and women (top story)

White British pupils are under-performing in our schools. We must not be afraid to ask why

Outcry after grammar school pupils asked buy slaves with 'good breeding potential' in history class

Blood, sweat and toil will overcome 
the ambitions of the Brexit wreckers

ExclusiveDavid Davis uses special Faraday briefcase to stop foreign spies snooping on Brexit secrets

Labour should ditch the EU's despotic Charter, and read our own Magna Carta

Cambridge set to seize on 'Brexit opportunities' by increasing postgraduate intake

Government to spend £10m to recruit 600 foreign teachers

Teacher who became face of Government recruitment drive warns that children are subjected to 'left-wing brainwashing' in classroom

last not least

The drop in university applications is a good thing – they are no longer preparing our children for work

I never click on the Telegraph link and am naively shocked at how relentlessly conservative it is.

What did you expect from the Torygraph, Boiled?

I was pleased to see this Telegraph article though - I might go back through my posts and see how many weeks ago it was that I suggested TM ought to set up a cross-party commission for Brexit...

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/14/british-citizens-human-rights-brexit
Scared about your human rights after Brexit? You should be

David Davis has confirmed that the EU charter of fundamental rights won’t become domestic law. This must be challenged and debated immediately

Some may argue, or at least wish, that abolition of the Human Rights Act has been kicked so far into the long grass that it may not happen at all. But exit day marks a significant change in our direction of travel. No longer subject to the protections of the EU rights framework and its court, we need to make sure our constitutional and legal framework protects us. This week’s supreme court victory for John Walker, ensuring equal pension rights for his husband, was thanks to EU law, and is a timely reminder. We cannot afford to fall (or be pushed) behind European standards; indeed, our rights framework – on employment, the environmental, human rights and other important social protections – may yet be a prerequisite for trade agreements.

Parliamentary time will only be made for new laws to safeguard our rights if MPs insist. Environmental lawyers are gearing up already. Equality lawyers and groups, as well as the Equality and human rights commission, are making the case for a freestanding constitutional right to equality.

None of this may matter to a Conservative government, with its mutterings about abolishing the Human Rights Act. But the government’s position now is precarious, and ministers may have no choice but to listen.

And

Which brings me back to David Davis. He declares, on the front page of the European Union (withdrawal) bill that its provisions are compatible with the ECHR. But right there, in the explanatory notes to the bill, is an extraordinary attempted power grab: the government wants to be able to remove the rights of EU citizens in the event of no deal, without a parliamentary vote. The charter may be on its way out, but the rights of EU nationals under the European convention will still apply. Mass litigation, and mass chaos, may follow. No wonder the joint committee was “surprised to be informed that the government saw the question of domestic protection for fundamental rights as a matter for negotiation with the other EU member states”.

Daniel Hannan, Tory MEP and a leading Brexiter was advocating an EFTA Brexit.
Back in the day.
Happily accepting the 4 Freedoms:

"The EFTA states participate fully in the so-called Four Freedoms of the single market — free movement, that is, of goods, services, people and capital.

But they are outside the Common Agricultural Policy.
They control their own territorial resources, including fish stocks and energy reserves.
They administer their own frontiers and admit whom they choose onto their territory.
They settle their own human rights questions.
They are exempt from a good deal of EU social and employment law (all of it in the case of Switzerland). They are able to negotiate free trade deals with third countries.
They pay only a token contribution to the Brussels budget. Oh yes, and they’re all sovereign democracies."

https://www.brugesgroup.com/media-centre/papers/8-papers/771-the-case-for-efta

i remember his article made a good case, with plenty of facts and statistics.
Why have Brexiters moved the goalposts since, to declare EFTA as "not Brexit"
What has changed ?

What has changed?

There are a number of likely explanations:

1. They didn't realise what EFTA membership entailed: you may recall that during the campaign, the leave shills on these boards touted, in succession, the Norway, Switzerland, Canadian and (I kid you not) Albanian solution, abandoning each as they realised what they entailed. My view is that leave shills on mumsnet closely followed the lines being touted at the main leave campaign by people like Cummings (indeed they were probably employed to do so) - so this "incompetence argument" is fairly likely to be correct. Leavers are not by and large people who do their homework (with notable exceptions like R North).

1. It was a deliberate lie to suck in voters by dangling a soft Brexit which they could harden later on. May be true for some of the hardline group of backbench Tory MPs and MEPs, and the few kippers with enough brain cells for this sort of cunning plan.

1. Finally, the government and in particular May herself has played a role in shifting public opinion (I think in the run up to the referendum most voters would have been fine with a softer Brexit, if they had even given the matter any thought). Why they have done this is another question, but I think our not-so-free press has played a big role. We know that some government ministers are closely linked to foreign media owners, e.g. when Gove interviewed Trump, Murdoch was in the room. May's unelected special advisors were probably also instrumental in this. Their departure has resulted in some toning down of the rhetoric.

Not sure why starting school at 7 would be bad?

We don't have high quality affordable provision like the Scandinavian countries that have this, or the tradition of both parents taking shared parental leave. If the state can't afford schools for the under 7s, it certainly won't be funding this childcare. I'm not sure how much full-time nursery places cost now, but 6 years ago we were paying >£900 per child outside London in a pretty cheap area. For many couples, its not viable for both to continue working. As now, it will mostly be the (lower paid) woman giving up work. Add the extended duration to cover 7 years' childcare, say 10 years with 2 kids with a 2 year age gap, longer if 3+ kids. That's a long time for women to be out of the labour market & economically inactive - deskilled, no pension contributions, no chance to pay off tuition fee debts or save for a house/contribute to a mortgage. I get that there's some evidence children are more ready to learn at age 7, but this as policy with our current provision & economic set-up would be like resetting our society to the 1940s and wholly detrimental to women. Don't forget - if the economy tanks, retirement age/state pension age will increase again, wiping out the glut of early retiring/fit & healthy grandparents currently shouldering much of their adult children's childcare needs. It's an awful idea in so many ways.

Children are only ready to learn at 7 if they receive high quality and stimulating childcare before this.

This can happen at home of course, but starting school at 7 with no provisions for good quality public childcare from age 3/4 will leave children from disadvantaged backgrounds behind.

EU countries with later starts to formal schooling typically have universal, full time and usually free childcare from age 3. My kids are in a system where children enter school at 6. They were both in free fulltime state nursery school from ages 2 and 2.5 respectively.

Thanks misti - useful insight.

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/10/electoral-reform-needed-to-control-money-lies-online-world

Who's supposed to regulate elections in the 21st century? Apparently no one

Philip Hammond showing that there are always new depths of this shitshow to be plumbed

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/15/philip-hammond-in-row-over-even-a-woman-can-drive-a-train-jibe

Philip Hammond appears to have irked the prime minister by making a sexist remark in cabinet, exposing the tensions at the highest level of government.

Reports suggest that in a discussion about transport, the chancellor quipped that driving trains had now been made so easy that “even a woman” could do it.

A report in the Sun newspaper, which was not disputed by senior Conservative sources, said Hammond had made the remark, only to be rebuked by Theresa May.

I'm not sure how much full-time nursery places cost now, but 6 years ago we were paying >£900 per child outside London in a pretty cheap area.

We are outside London, but admittedly in a relatively expensive area. We paid £1k per month for 4 days a week nursery. It was an extraordinary relief when dd started school and it is only now I can afford to go retrain as a nurse. It was unthinkable to take any sort of pay cut while I had childcare to pay. It would also have been impossible for us to have another child and for us both to continue in work (in our case DH would have had to stay at home) .

While I am in agreement that formal education could wait until 7 this would be crippling for families unless we had heavily subsidised, ideally free childcare before that. If we can't afford schools we can't afford good quality childcare. This is another one of those things that should be done, but can't be done on the cheap while we have a crippled economy.

Listen to Tony Blair on Radio 4. Someone is speaking up for staying in the EU. Also bemoaning the lack of leadership. There is a lot of "followership"! Brilliant.