Westminsterenders: The Ersatz ImitationThread

[OlennasWimple]

I am no RedToothBrush, so I'm not going to try to emulate her exception OP style.

Here, though, in the interests of carrying on our conversations about WTF is going on with Brexit and the weird political world we find ourselves in right now, is a sort of continuation thread

(Hurry back Red, we need you!)

EU Referendum (Richard North)
@eureferendum
UK gov needs to check its WTO quota on idiocy because we must be over the limit by now

Pete Northh @PeteNorth303*
There's only one group who benefits from a "no deal" #Brexit. Billionaire oligarchs. So time to look at who's funding Tory think tanks.

I don't think all the cabinet chaos is trying to send signals to the EU at all.

The major problem has always been that the UK side are not paying much attention to the negotiations, just to Uk party politics and careers

The chaos on the UK side is genuine, because no one can see how to square the Tory / Leave promises with the reality of what is available.

They are panicking at what will happen if the voters ever realise the mess the Tory party in particular has landed them in, entirely for internal party reasons.

The idea that it is a cunning plan, an advantage for DD not to show his hand is risible:

Unless Barnier & his minions are total idiots, EVERYONE knows the UK hand.

I agree, BCF, not much mileage in pretending to be at war/completely incompetent. This isn't some sort of charade for the benefit of the EU, they genuinely can't help behaving in a scandalously irresponsible and disastrous way. It would be funny if there wasn't so much at stake and the insistent ticking of a clock.

It would be funny if there wasn't so much at stake and the insistent ticking of a clock

It's not a clock. It's a countdown timer.

And whilst there is a lot of obfuscation everywhere with Brexit, the question of which blithering idiot started it off has an unequivocal answer:

Theresa May

In fact, when Brexit is reversed/cancelled/paused, the one irrefutable fact about it will be that it was Theresa Mays insistence on triggering A50 as early as possible which made it so.

One for the conspiraloon fringe - you can have that for free .

Gibberish
R4 now

Surreal and farcical - just like real life. And just like real life, a clueless PM and enabling government more interested in their careers

A surreal drama from the imagination of Christopher Lee.
It's 31 July 2017 and an increasingly certifiable Prime Minister is about to call another snap election when she is told that Gibraltar wants to stay in Europe and so, after 300 years of British rule, the Gibbies (as she calls them) are about to declare they are Spanish.
She goes into gigantic decline declaring history will write her off as the PM who lost more than her majority - if Gib goes, so will Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The Queen, cousin of the Spanish King, wants to know what's going on and gives her PM advice she never expected to hear, telling her about the Buckingham Palace fox's attitude towards flamingo and the cost of large animal vets that look after the Gibraltar monkeys.
And, all the while, a conjuror's assistant on three bottles of whisky a day through a glass straw has a theory to save the Empire - and Fulham from relegation.
It's all more Gixit than Brexit.
Written by Christopher Lee
Directed by Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

I like to think I'm an optimist...i used to be!

The only upside of this whole sorry mess is that the Tories won t get elected again for decades

But at what cost?

Re. brass plating

This from PwC (not known for being hysterical) back in April.
pwc.blogs.com/fsrr/2017/04/banking-brexit-ecb-plan-contingency.html

"No ‘brass plates’

The ECB confirmed that it will not allow banks to operate with a minimal ‘brass plate’ presence in the euro area. The ECB expects banks it supervises to have significant risk governance capability locally, and to manage all material risks at the local level. The ECB will also expect euro area banks to be operationally independent and not overly reliant on outsourcing functions or services.

Banks should ensure that plans for post-Brexit arrangements are consistent with the ECB’s expectations. For example, some banks are considering a back-to-back booking models, with market risks continuing to be managed out of London. The ECB has made clear that they will allow this model but would only consider this approach as a short term solution and on a case by case basis."

The only upside of this whole sorry mess is that the Tories won t get elected again for decades

I do hope so. My only fear is that the Opposition parties won't do much better. Whereas the Tories will wreck the NHS, and education deliberately, the others will do so by accident. Either way, they will be broken.

The only upside of this whole sorry mess is that the Tories won t get elected again for decades

I wonder if we are on the precipice of seeing a tectonic shift in British politics ... in the same way we got Whigs and Tories, and then the decline of the Liberals and rise of Labour. All driven by the FPTP system which guarantees two party politics.

(Whether two party politics are sustainable any more is another debate).

Maybe, Sting was right when he [[http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/police/spiritsinthematerialworld.html
wrote]] There is no political solution. To our troubled evolution

(You can imagine what sort of 15 year old I must have been )

I'm wondering that too LH

Not a Sting fan so can't help you there!

Not a Sting fan so can't help you there!

I put a link to the song in my post ...

I'm afraid I'm a bit about the Tories being unelectable after this. The fact that they still came first (although we can't really class it a win) in June despite the shenanigans of the past 11 months and a Marmite opposition says to me that, should they find a new leader with even the most dilute amount of charisma, they'll walk it.

Anyway, they will do whatever it takes to avoid another election (vide: crackpot alliances with the DUP) and Brexit could well have happened by the time they risk another .

I too am unfortunately about the Tories being unelectable for a generation.

They are going to blame all the woes of the UK economy on the nasty EU who wouldn't give them unicorns and everlasting cake made them a "third country" and jump through hoops to get a trade deal which won't be as beneficial as the Single Market

So it will be the EU's fault that the NHS and other public services are decimated especially when in a panic we sign TTIP on steroids

And the gullible electorate will fall for it again

I'm afraid I'm a bit hmm about the Tories being unelectable after this. The fact that they still came first (although we can't really class it a win) in June despite the shenanigans of the past 11 months and a Marmite opposition says to me that, should they find a new leader with even the most dilute amount of charisma, they'll walk it.

Up thread, I posted a new report commissioned by the UCU about the long term impact on peoples' taxable earnings of tuition fees, as they move into their 30s and 40s.

I usually pride myself on being reasonably on top of these issues, but I'm now quite stressed that my DD has borrowed the full £27,000 plus 3 x maintenance loan and wishing I'd looked a bit closer and found at least some of it from somewhere.

Who knew that the reason why hardly anybody pays it off during their working life is because the amount of interest stacks up to such an extent that it never goes away - so that a loan of £30,000 becomes a loan of £120,000 + + - and the SLC hikes up the interest rate if you leave the country for more than 3 months without telling them - for pretty much the rest of your working life!

When Corbyn latched onto student fees at the last election, I assumed he was just trying to garner the youth vote, and it looked a bit like crude electioneering. Actually, I think he is going after the long-term middle class vote. Nobody with this on their pay slip every month for the rest of their working life is going to vote Tory again.

I think the tories have always rather cynically reckoned that there will be lots of votes they'll lose (lefty academics /people on benefits/ ex-mining communities) but this will be more than made up for by votes from their core constituents - A/B AB wannabes and pensioners. Brexit cuts across a lot of this and incompetence will cut across even more, especially if it results in austerity. I also think the implications are longer lasting.

They've thrown away all the (slight) benefits of Cameron's liberal conservatism and become Blue-kip. There are a lot of people who will notice and remember. Even more when it goes tits up and remember that the cabinet couldn't even agree on a transition period for 3 days!

Corbin did far better than expected, but would Blair(pre-Iraq) have walked into no10?

Neither the E27 nor the Uk would enjoy the consequences of a no-deal Brexit

Only the EU side seems to realise this.
DD is enjoying the Fools' Paradise with Fox & Bojo

However, the no deal scenario the EU faces does not include all its trade treaties vanishing on 29 March 2017
along with membership of vital agencies.

Roy Hattersley, yonks ago, said that
referendums in the UK were fundamentally flawed,
because the public would consider them a referendum on whoever was asking the question.

Brexit: the implications for UK ports

4 possible Brexit trade scenarios, using WTO for the cost of trading across borders:

http://www.oxera.com/Latest-Thinking/Publications/Reports/2017/Brexit-ports.aspx

I have an ear worm: "The lunatics have taken over the asylum" by Fun Boy 3

http://www.brugesgroup.com/events/10-events/1267-jacob-rees-mogg-mp

"An address and question time with one of the most outstanding characters and intellects in the Parliamentary Conservative Party, Jacob Rees-Mogg

He will talk alongside like-minded genuine experts on Brexit"

Well, that event is on 2 October - Moggy could even be PM by then (I see no limit to this madness atm)

Mrsmartell I've always been an incorrigible optimist. My general attitude to life could be summed up as 'It will all work out in the end'.
I have followed Brexit from day 1 and, since Article 50 was invoked, I am finding it increasingly difficult to do my usual 'it will all be ok' talk to myself because I find myself not believing it anymore which is frightening, especially when I look at my children. I had my first ever panic attack a few weeks ago at the age of 49.
And then I feel guilty because, even with a really shit Brexit, I know that I'm still lucky to live here and not in Syria or Yemen or Somalia.
But my anger at something that has served us so well being thrown away to placate the mega rich and far right Tories at the expense of the next generation sickens me and for what?
I thought that Matthew Parris piece linked earlier was excellent. It wasn't ranting and raging- it seemed to come from a place of genuine anger and sadness without any attempt to push the blame onto other parties. For someone who is a lifelong Conservative, I really respect him for writing that.

I've agreed with everything MP has written since this debacle started...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40774251

Suggestions that freedom of movement will continue after the UK leaves the EU are wrong, Downing Street has said.
On Friday, Chancellor Philip Hammond warned full controls could take "some time", prompting speculation free movement may continue in all but name after the UK leaves in March 2019.
But amid claims of splits in cabinet, No 10 has moved to make clear free movement will end when the UK leaves.
It said: "It would be wrong to suggest it... will continue as it is now."
Downing Street's move followed days of uncertainty over future immigration policy during any transitional phase after Brexit.