Westminstenders: The wrong homework

[HashiAsLarry]

I'm no rtb but I'll give it a shot, though her efforts deserve much more than me.

The August negotiation round has, well, fizzled out in much the same way as any other. It's taken over a year to get to written position papers and there's still no clue as to a direction from the UK government.

Japan, meanwhile, is about to sign off on a deal with the EU. A deal we want to copy.

@faisalislam
^but if post brexit britain's trade deal with third biggest economy in world is to be based on Brussels' deal, what about rest? TTIP? Canada?
...when PM signs off statements like this on primacy of EU-third party deals, one wonders how temporary the temporary customs union will be^

The NHS is now launching a drive to recruit foreign GPs, like the ones that have left thanks to Brexit. It's a good job they'll be £350m a week better off now. Oh hang on...

It is illegal to throw a brick through a window
A vandal may still do so.

i had totally missed that JDD blog, Big - brilliant (though scary) stuff

As a Catholic, JRM must believe that the Pope is supreme sovereign - trumping even the UK parliament.

I am quite surprised to see this myth restated here.

I am a practicing Catholic who is pretty well informed as to the ins and outs of RC theology, and though my knowledge is far from exhaustive, I am happy to state with complete confidence that the Pope is not held to be 'supreme sovereign' over any temporal realm.

Rome was occupied by the Italian Army in 1870. The small area of Vatican City was restored to the papacy in 1929

The Pope:
Supreme Pontiff - yes.
Sovereign Pontiff - yes.
Bishop of Rome - yes.
Head of State of Vatican City - yes.
Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province of the RC Church - yes.
Diplomatic and cultural influence worldwide, even among non-Catholics - yes.
Supreme Sovereign of anywhere or anything - no.

EU publishing more position papers. Saying there are areas that can be progressed without knowing future deal (if any). NI issues are particular to that area and not a wedge for relationship EU wide.

"While the EU papers make clear “the onus” is on the UK to propose a solution, they indicate that Britain could, for example, guarantee there is no border infrastructure between Northern Ireland and Ireland and pledge to maintain protections from discrimination currently enshrined in EU law after Brexit.

They also say Northern Irish citizens should be able to continue to choose whether they identify as British or Irish, and by default an EU citizen.

They add: “Common Travel Area arrangements [across the border], in conformity with European Union law, should be recognised.”

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-eu-uk-talks-customs-unions-northern-ireland-position-papers-leak-negotiations-a7933311.html

Cons are going to ride a coach and four through the GFA. It will make the Commonwealth yearn for the days of yore and drop everything to run to be under the the control of the new and improved empire of Brexit Britain at the helm Not.

RedToothBrush Tue 05-Sep-17 23:32:31
Sam Coates Times @ samcoatestimes
Exc: Boundary Review based on 600 MPs to be dropped; new boundary review based on 650 MPs now likely

Will that mean no Westminster constituency redrawing in NI? The previous proposals would have meant Sinn Fein would have overtaken the DUP as the majority party in NI.

If there will be no redrawing of NI constituencies after all, this news coming a few months after the DUP held the Tories over a barrel and dictated terms of support makes me suspect there is more than a little coincidence at play here.

I also suspect that nationalist voters in NI will be inclined to see this as a highly cynical and illegal move, a kick to the teeth that is massively disrespectful to the democratic process that nationalists fought so long and so hard to be allowed to participate in after decades of illegal gerrymandering and exclusion, and proof positive that the DUP has achieved its aim of destroying the GFA.

Time to start stock piling food?

twitter.com/mrjamesob

If you scroll down one or two tweets to the podcast on the European charter on human rights vs ECHR, there is a strange image around 0,44 seconds in. They show the whole island of Ireland leaving the EU 'cos of Brexit and throwing the EU charter in the bin, too. Both the whole island of Britain and the whole island of Ireland. Now they seem to know the other countries in Europe don't make up part of the UK. Is it that hard to know Ireland doesn't either?

Oh, the DUP can't believe their luck. What with the demographics and everything. A PM willing to give them back their rightful place- completely in charge of everything propped up by Westminster. The myth of terrorism only coming from one side and collusion swept under the carpet. Maybe May, Gove and all feel they at least have a little of their empire still.

I don't know if it is correct, but Michelle O'Neill maintains in this quote that the St Andrews agreement changed the power of Westminster to impose direct rule over NI.

Mrs O'Neill also said that since the St Andrew's Agreement, the British government no longer has the ability to suspend the institutions in Northern Ireland and impose direct rule

The St Andrews Agreement, an agreement between the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland's political parties, was made in anticipation of the restoration of the power-sharing executive in 2007

It includes a clause that states: "The governments have made clear that in the event of failure to reach agreement by the November 24 (the date in 2006 on which parties were obliged to have indicated their candidates for a restored power-sharing executive) we will proceed on the basis of the new British Irish partnership arrangements to implement the Belfast Agreement

www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/michelle-oneill-irish-government-coequal-partners-in-good-friday-agreement-36107820.html

Oops, EU Charter of fundamental rights.

Let me preface the following by assuring you all that I love you to bits, but... once again, I find myself asking what the heck is taught under the heading of 'history' in UK classrooms?

How could any of you not understand why no Catholic PM has ever hing his or her hat in Number 10? How could this fact be a surprise?

Do any of you really understand what the Orange Order (and its political wing the DUP) is all about?

(LH But by definition a Catholic has to regard the pope as Gods servant on Earth and is beholden to him (until we get our first female pope .... If they do not accept that the pope is supreme on Earth they are not a Catholic

• you are mixing up several concepts here, and also several terms. The Pope has no temporal power apart from being the head of state of Vatican City and previously of the Papal States, but has supreme doctrinal authority over Catholics. They are not the same things at all. Posters who remind you of the Counter Reformation here in the context of temporal power are correct. The erroneous idea that RC politicians are puppets who must be willing to have their strings pulled by the unseen hand of Rome is one that cost Al Smith the presidency of the US, and almost threw a spanner in the works for JFK.

campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/when-a-catholic-terrified-the-heartland/ American fundamentalism is not a new thing, and it was weaned on anti-Catholicism.

Interestingly, it was the RC archbishop of New York, the Irishman known as 'Dagger John' whose campaign against the teaching of the protestant KJV and protestant doctrinal tenets in NY City public schools laid the foundations of the secularisation of American public schools.

rochdaleherald.co.uk/2017/08/27/nigel-farage-launches-nigel-farage-party/amp/

Michelle O'Neill: "The governments have made clear that in the event of failure to reach agreement by the November 24 (the date in 2006 on which parties were obliged to have indicated their candidates for a restored power-sharing executive) we will proceed on the basis of the new British Irish partnership arrangements to implement the Belfast Agreement" (from Cailleach's Belfast Telegraph link, wrt the St Andrews Agreement).

Jeffrey Donaldson was taking a swipe at the GFA with this statement quoted by you earlier, Cailleach -
"DUP MP Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said there would be repercussions for Theresa May's government if Dublin was given a say on the internal affairs of Northern Ireland.

"If that were to happen it would have grave consequences for the stability of the government at Westminster and for the prospect of restoring devolution in Northern Ireland," he said.

Dublin and London are co-equal partners in the GFA according to O'Neill.

TM says the "Belfast Agreement does include certain responsibilities in relation to the government of the Republic of Ireland in terms of north-south coordination"

Someone is going to have to square this circle.

www.politicshome.com/news/europe/eu-policy-agenda/brexit/news/88759/furious-lords-accuse-ministers-unprecedented-power
Furious Lords accuse ministers of 'unprecedented' power grab over Brexit bill

David Allen Green is pointing out this morning that for Brexit to work the government has to complete the TWIN tasks of getting a deal AND doing the repeal act.

Saying that we could send a letter to the EU later this year neglects this. Our legal system would effectively be up shit creek as well as our economy.

The Brexit bill stuff is not going well. And remember it also has to pass the Lords. The Lords may well feel they have nothing to lose against such an act as they become irrelevant if it's passed in its current form and that it's their sworn duty to protect democracy. Not forgetting the maths of the upper house which favour Labour and the LDs. Nor that the Sewell convention is considered null and void under a minority government.

May risks a constitutional crisis if she does not make amendments or pulls us out the EU unilaterally without first securing the repeal bill.

For anyone who says the EU is being obstructive and inflexible:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-41183041
Northern Ireland 'should have different Brexit deal' - EU

The government May has ruled this out as a possibility with no debate in parliament that I've seen. The devolved government hasn't met with the cabinet Brexit committee since March either

math my DH managed to do GCSE history at an academically selective school without learning that religion was involved in any way in the gunpowder plot. I can only assume that this was actively not taught as we managed to learn about it in pre-Standard Grade history.

amp.ft.com/content/17c896a4-92fa-11e7-a9e6-11d2f0ebb7f0
Keir Starmer eyes indefinite stay in EU customs union
Labour’s spokesman goes beyond party rethink last month on trade ties

Keir Starmer has said the UK should consider staying in a customs union with the EU indefinitely, unless there is evidence that new trade deals would make Britain better off.

Since the Election, Labour have gone from hard Brexit leaving the customs union and single market to transition where we stay in for a number of extra years whilst we put in practical arrangements.

And now Starmer is saying - stay in the customs union indefinitely.

Because leaving the customs union is dumb as fuck and has no benefit whatsoever - apart from if your name is Liam Fox.

(And the theory of the unseen hand of Rome was also used by the demagogue Randolph Churchill and his fellow Conservative Unionists and rabidly anti RC politicians like Edward Carson, who fomented the Ulster opposition to Home Rule that precipitated a constitutional crisis in the form of the Curragh Mutiny on the eve of WWI, and a little later morphed into the formation of the state of Northern Ireland. "Home Rule is Rome Rule" was the slogan of the time.)

07:40, the Today programme - John le Carre talking about his latest novel, the last featuring Smiley. Interesting from a literary point of view but also le Carre's take on Brexit, what he thinks about it and what Smiley and his ilk would think about it.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b092jw7q

my DH managed to do GCSE history at an academically selective school without learning that religion was involved in any way in the gunpowder plot

and the religious aspects of the English Civil War generally go undiscussed too.

I wonder if there is a correlation - maybe causation even - between knowledge of history, and the faux-patriotism of Leaver-UKIP types.

If there is, it's probably an inverse relationship.

Meanwhile (Today, R4) a former Labour whip - Stringer ?? - was insisting he will vote for the Repel Bill as to do anything else would be an affront to the electorate.

Hmmmm 50% of the population being ignored over 50% of the population ... I'm sure that sounds familiar

How could any of you not understand why no Catholic PM has ever hing his or her hat in Number 10? How could this fact be a surprise?

This was effectively what I was alluding to when I said that we had never had a Catholic PM and that J R-M is too Catholic for the Establishment. May is OK being an Anglo-Catholic member of the C of E - that's the Tory party at prayer, don't forget.

I suspect the version of history you learnt depended to some extent on the school you went to. I went to C of E or just ordinary LEA schools. DH went to Catholic schools - what he learnt about e.g. Martin Luther (virtually nothing) is completely different that what we learnt, where I recall writing a whole essay on him. I did History A level, including the Civil War period, and a standard text at the time was Christopher Hill's Century of Revolutions. CH was a Marxist, so instead of making the Civil War solely about religion and Charles I's very high Anglicanism, he made it about the economic power of the rise of the middle class - hence Hampden and Ship Money, and increased Parliamentary Powers for the Commons, ending the Divine Right of Kings.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/landlords-rejecting-eu-citizens-homes-avoid-regulations-brexit-a7933411.html
Landlords admit turning away EU citizens to avoid Government regulations
Almost one in five landlords say they would be reluctant to let property to an EU national, due to checks they must now complete

Lets do a little joined up thinking here, since the government clearly can't manage it.

So we have a foreign doctor - they could be EU or even non-EU - who wants to live and work abroad - but its particularly relevant to EU citizens.

They have to apply for a visa. Its a maximum of 5 years.

Even if they can afford to buy a house here, whilst working here, you wouldn't if you only had a 5 year commitment to the country. Plus under the current circumstances EU nationals are having trouble obtaining mortgages due to Brexit uncertainity.

And now Landlords are avoiding renting to EU nationals because they don't like the paperwork.

The situation will be even work for nurses.

Today's Daily Mail cover?

GPs threatening to not take on any new patients. I can't think why this situation might have arisen.

And Damien Green is prattling on the radio saying there is lots of evidence that immigration is depressing wages. Except there's none. At all. And Theresa May was busy in the commons saying that there will be no wage rises for nurses and isn't interested in problems McDonalds workers have when it comes to zero hours contracts.

- was insisting he will vote for the Repel Bill as to do anything else would be an affront to the electorate.

I think it's highly debatable now as to what the will of the electorate is. It was pretty evenly split before, and since then we have had an election which didn't endorse May's ideas, plus the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

Having sacked off history in favour of colouring in geography at the first possible opportunity I'm not best placed to comment, but even in social geography it gets pretty obvious pretty quickly that there's no such thing as a simple answer to 'why' on any multiple factor question. So anyone not getting beyond the Ladybird Book of History level of explanation is probably going to think things are simpler than they are. And be in for a nasty shock when all the other factors start getting in the way of their nice simple solutions.

As an aside, many deeply right-wing conservatives such as JRM are not huge fans of the current Pope. In Hungary Pope Francis and the one local bishop who openly supports him are considered to be traitors. This a very restrained article,
FB is very different. www.reuters.com/article/europe-migrants-hungary-bishop/catholic-bishop-gives-shelter-to-migrants-in-rare-voice-of-support-in-hungary-idUSKBN16L1MX