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...

60 MPs want May to pursue a hard Brexit, yet May, who took this stance, lost her majority. I am tempted to ask them what they don't understand about democracy? They ought to know as our elected representatives.

Isn't it amazing? DUP the only party on the island of Ireland to oppose the GFA. Majority of voters for it. 71% in NI and 94% in Irl. That is what you call a whopping democratic mandate of the people in any language. Yet, the DUP can kill it, against that mandate. Make Westminster not respect it. You bet democracy will fly out the window. Yet, they will sanctimoniously and hypocritically maintain they are the guardians of it. Yes, the EU are worried about their attitude. Get in line.

The gov't (inc. DUP) now have their hostages on which to inflict vengeance all the while making up as they go along the interpretation of what the Brexit vote represented. It obviously now means to renege on the GFA. DUP can reverse the democratic will. Or neuter it. Weasels would be less slippery and more trustworthy than this present shower. I apologise for any offence to Weasels

Kate Hoey speaking for the Conservative Party. Doing more agreeing with them than her own benches.

CROSS THE FLOOR.

What a pity that Kate Hoey didn't get deselected! The Tories would love it if she did cross the floor.

Barnier to meet with MSPs next Monday, giving the members of the Scottish Parliament's European Committee an update on how negotiations are progressing from an EU perspective

stv.tv/news/politics/1397226-eu-s-brexit-negotiator-michel-barnier-will-meet-msps/

McAlpine [the chair of the committee] added: "As there have been no formal intergovernmental discussions within the UK on the withdrawal process since February this year, speaking to Mr Barnier will allow us to gain a greater understanding of the direction of the talks and the consequences of the negotiations for Scotland."

www.standard.co.uk/news/education/brexit-exodus-of-eu-nationals-brings-sharp-drop-in-primary-school-applications-a3628126.html?amp
Brexit exodus of EU nationals brings sharp drop in primary school applications

Town hall chiefs issued a stark warning that if applications continued to fall head-teachers could be forced to scale back subjects, lease out classrooms, merge with other schools — or even permanently close their doors.

“An over-supply of places reduces the viability of existing schools and, in the most severe cases, could result in reduced curriculums or even the closure of some schools,” the report said.

So 'freeing up' school places for British children isn't exactly going to happen in primary schools and schools might be forced to close.

And even though all these EU citizens are leaving with their young kids, there's a different problem for secondary schools with the need to create EXTRA places.

If EU nationals were to blame, how does that even make sense?

On the same day Bryant has his book out and does a piece on the aristocracy we have this tweet:

Andrew Lilico @ andrewlilico
Where leftie revolutions lead:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/05/day-1793-france-unleashes-terror-against-enemies-revolution/amp/
On this day in 1793: France unleashes the Terror against enemies of the Revolution

The newspaper article was from 4 days ago so the timing from Lilico rather than Bryant is the noteworthy one.

Seriously though, can you sense the nervousness.

I don't know many people in my age group who are particular royalists. A few who aren't against the monarchy but are others generally fed up of establishment that shuts them out or is creating a ceiling of opportunity for them despite being not only exceptional but also full of vision.

There's a real issue that's only going to get worse.

Brexit exodus of EU nationals brings sharp drop in primary school applications
That's very interesting rtb
We've noticed this ourselves round our way, with all the local infant schools reporting a drop in applications. This was the first year I haven't heard anyone not get their first choice (it may have happened, but normally you hear about it and there's nothing on the old gossip network). In my DCs school and another nearby they could shrink the intake by a class for this year's reception. These are schools that are either excellent or narrowly missed excellent in recent ofsted reports, so not schools you just wouldn't want your dc at. We aren't an area of high immigration, at least by London Borough standards either.

Given there is still a shortage of school places at primary and secondary level in London (acknowledged in the last para of the article) less pressure on places is surely a good thing? A more pertinent issue for the Capital may well be that the working age population tends to migrate away from London to other parts of the UK due to cost of living and quality of life issues.

Re Chris Bryant, he represents a Brexit voting area in Wales and in the article acknowledges how good the CAP etc are for the aristocracy. Beyond the usual platitudes I have never heard him give a detailed defence of his pro-EU position - I would be genuinely interested if there is a good article out there - off to google. (absolutely do accept that there are Right and Left wing Remainers rtb - eg. on a lot of issues I would have agreed with Tam Dayell but we part company on the EU)

For a laugh
Sky News man loses will to say anything more about Brexit
https://www.facebook.com/PokeHQ/videos/1789512974422321/

Pressure on places isn't universal though howabout, less applicants in my area won't help pressure in a different part of London or another part of the country and vice versa.
But then, that's why it was always a local issue rather than the fault of forriners.

I think the drop in primary school applications has more to do with the birth rate. There was a baby boom when my eldest was born, driven by the recession. She was born on the cusp of the school year and there was a noticeable difference in the number of applications locally between the year she should have been in (overdue baby ) and the year she is in. See the same when I shop for her- the shops have always sold out of her age range when they have plenty of stock for the ages either side.

Not saying that the drop in eu applicants doesn't make a difference, but outside of London, I'd be surprised if it is the prime reason for a drop in applications.

I will say that the baby boom made giving birth a bit nerve wracking- the two local maternity units were often both full

And meanwhile in a very wet and miserable Glasgow Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and Derek MacKay Scottish Parliament Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Constitution are meeting to plan for the post Brexit Scottish economy - not quite the radio silence being implied.

www.gov.uk/government/news/liz-truss-scottish-businesses-are-vital-for-a-flourishing-post-brexit-uk-economy

(even if it is a bit weird seeing LT highlighting tax free childcare when Scotland is busy extending free 30 hours for all 3 year olds rather than rushing to implement it on the cheap for working parents only)

My gut feeling is that a drop in school admissions will exacerbate the London/rUK divide.

(I would be curious to know if the push factor on EU nationals leaving the UK is evenly spread throughout the UK, or if some areas are losing more than others ?)

Of course the upshot of this may be the irony that places that strongly supported leave will see a worsening quality of education as immigrants leave

bolshy I had both my DCs in boom time round here. Definitely makes things hairy!
On that point, I don't think the drop in applicants round our way this year is a birth rate issue (well mainly birth rate issue) as the boom didn't break after DC2 for a while. Of course, that's not to say that's not an issue in other parts of the country or London.

irony that places that strongly supported leave will see a worsening quality of education as immigrants leave

But but but Sunlit Uplands!

www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick-adam-ramsay-crina-boros/revealed-tory-mps-using-taxpayers-cash-to-fund-sec
So cross that tax payers money is used to fund this.

I think the drop in primary school applications has more to do with the birth rate.

Gilead is coming. Buy shares in ropes, pulleys, and firms making black dye.

Elsewhere in The Standard they are still working on the assumption that the population of London will be 10m by 2031, so perhaps a bit much hyperbola on both sides

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/how-will-we-feed-and-water-10-million-londoners-by-2031-a3629106.html

Feeling the need to repeat that a third of EU migrants live in London so any "demographic" impact elsewhere is unlikely to be significant.

But howabout - if you look through the Scotland Office's news archive, Liz Truss' meeting appears to be the first real contact since February.

Admittedly, inbetweentimes, there has been an election, which might have been a bit of a distraction but who's fault was that?

I did find it somewhat seeing within the Scotland Office's new releases one lauding how much HS2 was going to benefit Scotland That would be the railway line which is coming nowhere near Scotland but which we are paying towards as it is part of "national" infrastructure?

The last meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee was in January, and in response to a written question as to when the next one would be there is a woolly answer "anticipating" further discussions www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-07-12/4456

But I suppose we should be grateful that they claim to be talking to the devolved executives. After all, the Repel Bill wouldn't be taking devolved powers away from the devolved administrations and giving them back to Westminster now, would it --who of course we can trust
implictly to give those powers straight back to Scotland, Wales and NI-- ?

Having watched a lot of this debate, I'd say on the whole its more promising than I feared it could be. The people who have made the most noteworthy comments have been Grieve, Benn and IDS after Starmer and Davis. The nuances and body language is most interesting. When Hansard is up, I'll post some of them.

(IDS's motivation is driven, I'm sure because his seat is on a hit list. Davis's motivation I mention below).

Overall there is a broad agreement. The points that Labour are making which they say they will block the 2nd Reading on, are the same ones that Tories are saying are problematic. The way they are stating this is simply different - both agree that the bill is ultimately needed, its just that its not fit for purpose in its current form and the government should go away and have a bloody good think about it.

The fact that Davis stated he was open to the idea of amendments is very different to the a50 debates. Plus you have Brexiteers also saying that there is something of a need for caution and changes. Again a very different dynamic to earlier this year.

IF this goes down that route it might be broadly ok. This depends on how May decides to go, and how much she wants unlimited Henry VIII powers. A lot of where this goes is down to how much will there is to drop certain clauses and to amend others. I think this really rests a great deal with her and how much she wants to rip up rights. Rights are the single biggest stumbling block after the principle of stopping the executive having too much power. Some of these do seem to be supported by many Tories as well as on opposition benches by the sound of it.

If May throws her hat in with the most hardliners on this, this will become an unmitigated disaster and it will be directly because of her. Davis has dropped her in that from his tone today. If she attempts to push the Repel Bill through without amendment and pulls the party line with the whips to support it as it stands will not go down well with Tories and IMHO will almost certainly trigger a leadership bid sooner rather than later. Davis is playing a blinder in this respect. He's positioning himself as listening to the remainer section of the party whilst also being a firm leader. His ambition might well rein in May and Brexit, if things continue this way. Davis as PM isn't a thought I relish given the bollocks he spouts, but the dynamic of the possibility of it, is mildly better than what seems to be coming from May's corner atm (this is all in relative terms of course - egomanic nutter 1 v egomanic nutter 2 and you just want imaginary reasonable backstabber 3 to take them all out). Think the point here, is that Davis could be willing to compromise on Brexit if it wins him the Tory Leadership in the long run.

The politico article about the Brexit war within the Department of Fucking the UK (rather than DEXEU they shall be named DEFUK) seems to also say that with Davis at war with May's seeming stooge Robins.

The trouble is I think May is too dumb / inflexible / racist and wed to her vision of Brexshit to handle this well. And Davis is just another monster / idiot cut from the same cloth of lies and delusion.

Anyway, yeah, I do see there COULD be a sensible approach here.

One that Labour might be prepared to vote for if there are amendments (again whether this is a good thing is a relative issue and depends on how you view Brexit). I suspect the talk of not voting for it, is more posturing than set in stone at this point.

Ian Dunt does see it differently to me, but I do broadly agree with some of his points:

John Redwood‏*@johnredwood*
The Withdrawal Bill does not confer powers to bypass democracy. It restores Parliamentary control over our laws in a very real way.

Ian Dunt‏*@IanDunt*

Hi kids! Let's play liar or fool!
Repeal bill is a useful litmus test of Brexiters. Your could support Brexit and still want much stronger safeguards than it provides.
You could ask for longer lead-in times so there'd be advanced scrutiny of SIs. Or for greater use of affirmative procedure.
^Or for any use at all of super-affirmative procedure. Or power to table amendments to SIs. Or putting trade union, business groups & NGOs
on special committees to assess assess the SIs. This would suggest you meant what you said during campaign about parliamentary sovereignty.^
^But if, on other hand, you pretend oy's all fine and there's no problem with the government getting unprecedented new powers & trampling
over ancient English liberties... Well then it's not unreasonable for us to call you a lying, hypocritical, convictionless ,ideologically-crazed, demented bellend motivated primarily by small-minded xenophobia and not the highfalutin values you pretend to hold.^
Not that I think that of course. Never occurred to me.
But the truth is hardly any Brexiters are challenging it. I see only usual suspects - those Leavers who were never motivated by immigration and who have maintained an independent stance throughout. Vast majority either silent or supportive of a bill which directly contradicts their supposed principles. This is because many were simply motivated by Little-Englander sentimentality at best and xenophobia at worst.
And because many of those that weren't have become so lost in tribalism that they are at this point politically insane.
Objective reality - whether on trade, or immigration, or legislation - simply doesn't affect them anymore.
Ok, rant over.

Which brings me back to Kate Hoey who freely admitted she didn't understand the legal stuff, justifying this because most of the general public wouldn't even. Instead she said the bill should be simply passed. Without thought. Otherwise its a betrayal.

Yes she admitted she was either too stupid or too lazy to do the job she was elected to do - to learn and understand these concepts so the public doesn't have to and then vote on their behalf. Instead she just votes based on a free admittance of ignorance and no pretence of anything different.

Or course we know this, but to see her pretty much admit this, was quite something.

Think she falls under the definition of 'fool and insane'.

Natalie Sedacca‏*@nataliesedacca*
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is strength. Henry VIII powers restore Parliamentary control over laws. #GreatRepealBill

Kate Hoey ... Argh!!!

She is sooo depressing. We all knew she would be returned: her seat is ultra-safe and it would have required a miracle of pro-Remain pragmatism and a Lib-Lab understanding (utterly unachievable at present, sadly) to have offered another realistic candidate in her seat.

What is telling is how many people refused to canvass for her. Our area bulged with canvassers refusing to knock on doors, who were very committed to a Labour win, so came canvassing in our area instead. Same report across other areas of South London.

She really is an utter disgrace. I'm not fond of the Momentum push to have regular re-selection of sitting MPs but ... then I think of Kate Hoey and I think: "Hmmm. They have a point there ..."

She really is not representative of the views of her constituents (and she's a shit constituency MP, too, apparently).

Pete North‏**@PeteNorth303**
1. The only way for NI to avoid a hard border is is to maintain all aspects of the single market and EU customs systems.
2. Even that will not be enough. It will require a number of patches to emulate parts of the customs union.
3. In effect, NI will more or less stay part of the EU in all but name under a special status. I see no other options.
4. That means customs checks will have to be on the mainland UK sea ports. It's the least intrusive means.
5. To keep those at a minimum we will have to maintain UK convergence with single market probably indefinitely.
6. The more we diverge from single market rules, the stricter the checks will have to be.
7. What we are not seeing from the hard Brexiters is any kind of recognition of these realities. They are in denial.
8. There will have to be compromise. One suspects any transition deal will be membership in name only with no substantive changes.
9. Once any new agreement takes effect we will start to diverge from EU, but the transitional status will remain for NI.
10. In order for this to work there's going to have to be substantial devolution to NI because they are going to be running a bespoke regime
11. Whether this is politically acceptable is a whole other question but there intractable dilemmas where hard choices must be made.
12. Then, as the UK peels away from the customs union, we are going to have to negotiate a rules of origin waiver. Good luck with that!
13. I've no idea if that will be acceptable to the EU but if is then it's going to come with a mountain of red tape and multiple conditions
14. If the UK wants full independence without all of this then there has to be a hard border in Ireland. That is the reality.
15. The refusal of hard Brexiteers to even engage on these issues drives us ever closer toward a complete failure and hard border by default
16. It wouldn't be so bad if we could even have a realistic debate but that cannot happen while the Brexit Taliban are in lala land.
17. Hard choices have to be made and we cannot go on bluffing because the time has come for those decisions to be made.
18. And that is a serious problem for this government because they don't have the first grasp of the issues. No idea how to even approach it
19. It also means making some firm decisions about the future relationship for whole of the UK - and that means speaking truth to idiocy.
20. May is trying to defer these decisions to avoid a confrontation with the Brexit Taliban - but time has run out. We need to have it out.
21. We can no longer kick the can down the road. It's decision time and the fat lady is on in five.

Paul Miller‏*@nlholdem*

^According to Paul Hardy, a transition period might be impossible due to Clause 6 in the Withdrawal Bill, unless amended. It removes ECJ.
So possibly all these issues are going to be even more urgent and intractable.^

Pete North‏**@PeteNorth303**

Looks that way.

This is where Brexit in a nutshell. To the letter. The crunch was ALWAYS about NI and I've said that since before the referendum. (Gibraltar is in the same boat effectively too)

For reference:
publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/2017-2019/0005/cbill_2017-20190005_en_2.htm#pb3-l1g9

Clause 6 is the ECJ clause.
Clause 9 is the Henry VII clause.
Clauses 10 & 11 related to devolution

These are the real biggies.

I think Davis would take the ECJ ultimately. May won't. There's also Brexit in a nutshell.

The crunch was ALWAYS about NI and I've said that since before the referendum. (Gibraltar is in the same boat effectively too)

My DB said the same a year ago, so you are not alone.

He BTW is one who found an EU ruling (to do with transport) which is disadvantageous to the UK. He has read the ruling. As he points out, our own Government had ample time to listen to voices in the industry and raise objections but they chose neither to listen nor object. They then implemented the rule over-zealously. Which the industry gets round. But blame the EU for your own laziness, hey?
(I can't explain more, because the details were a bit too technical for me, but it was his line of work, so he did know what he was talking about.)