Westminstenders: The beginning of the dictatorship and the end of Boris?

[RedToothBrush]

Brexit is being fought in the UK media and parliament on the premise that the EU is being difficult and obstructive.

The fallacy can not be understated.

What the UK fails to understand is the right of the EU to put their own interests before the UKs. It doesn't under that our demands cannot be met even if the EU wanted to for practical and legal reasons - not political ones because our understanding of the situation and law is so poor.

The net result is the slippage of the next phase of Brexit talks being pushed to Christmas by the EU due to lack of progress by the UK. Barnier is open to more regular and intense talks but this is bad news for the UK with the a50 clock ticking.

The main stumbling block is NI a with Barnier warning not to use the border as a way to test EU resolve. Brexit always about the NI border. The UK have never provided a solution to the EU that does not produce a hard border. The idea being pushed by the UK will create one despite claiming it won't. The reality is the only viable solutions are either staying in the single market and customs union or NI being granted special status and being different to the rest of the country. The former is opposed by the government, the later opposed by the DUP.

The DUP are getting a taste of their own medicine. They have been warned that Assembly Members might have pay frozen and if they don't reform Stormont they won't get their Billion Pound Booty. Plus Ian Paisley Jr just found a new scandal for the party.

May is trying to channel Venezuela by getting rid of democracy when it suits. The Great Repel Bill (aka as the Withdrawal Bill) faces it's challenge. The much feared Henry VIII in clause 9 are not only facing criticism from Remainers but also from the secretive crackpots of Tory Bastard Club (aka ERG). The TBC want hard cliff edge Brexit. May seems to support given her goodwill burning interference at the Home Office which seeks to discriminate against all foreigners and make them sign a register. The visa system and how it will attract much needed staff for the NHS makes the mind boggle.

The Repel Bill also could end the possibility of transition due to clause 6 which requires us to leave the ECJ. Given the May's ambition to make EU citizens display their stars in job applications this is totally unable to the EU. If it passes the chances of transition drop dramatically. Bye bye Smooth and Orderly.

Then there is the May-Bot paradox: the one were she gives a friendly speech to the EU and a nasty on to the Swivel Eyed Loon gathering. As if neither will be reported to the other audience.

On top of this May is attempting the Parliament Rigging Act as she has a 'majority Government'. Yep I know, this is the general election version of 'will of the people'. The Rigging Act seeks to stack parliamentary committees with Tory majorities so they can stop any bill they don't like getting anywhere need the main chamber this limiting the power of opposition to irrelevant. Sadly I think this one will get through due to maths of the HoC atm.

We shouldn't forget the role of the HoL though and the lack of a majority government (why do you think May is saying majority government? It's down to the Sewell convention and trying to make the case it applies when the argument is it doesn't for a minority government).

The other development is the rumours that Boris is for the boot. And Rees-Mogg might get a promotion.

Why is May travelling to Florence to make a speech about Brexit
To put flowers on Machiavelli's grave?

I don't know how accurate this is, but I was told that after the Fire of London, regulations were made that the buildings could not be clad in flammable materials. Pickles abolished this rule. Grenfell.

howabout Do you disapprove of UK citizens moving abroad, or just pensioners ?.
Just to the EU, or to the US, Australia, NZ, Caribbean etc ?

Pensioners who have emigrated to Spain, France and elsewhere in Europe are saving the UK about £450m a year in health care costs
a senior official at the department of health has revealed.

17:16 www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/feb/28/brexit-labour-criticised-for-voting-with-tories-in-lords-against-single-market-amendment-politics-live?page=with:block-58b5b02ce4b030b6f7c90113#block-58b5b02ce4b030b6f7c90113

Paul MacNaught told the health select committee that the 190,000 British pensions living in Europe, mainly in Spain, France, Ireland and Cyprus,
cost an average of £2,300 a year to the UK in payments to local health providers compared to £4,500 to support a pensioner in the UK.

There is also the problem that NHS and care services cannot find sufficient staff for UK residents
Probably need to build more hospitals too

www.google.co.uk/search?q=queen+olympics+2012&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari

Just watched this again. Don't know whether to laugh or cry.

On Florence, this tweet from David Allen Green was one of my laugh out loud moments in a depressing week.

What about young graduates moving abroad to avoid repaying loans - possible in some countries

Not sure if this has been posted before but it's very good.

www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/09/28/brexits-irish-question/

Brexit’s Irish Question
Fintan O’Toole

(paywall) Pound Surge

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/15/pound-surge-bank-england-shift-mixed-blessing/

David Bloom, chief currency strategist at HSBC, said it is nigh impossible for markets to make a sensible judgment on sterling until the terms of Brexit are clarified.

The outcome is starkly binary given the possibility of acrimonious rupture.

“Everybody knows that the pound is mispriced at the moment. It is either much too strong or much too weak"

< until the govt sorts itself out, expect more wild swings on rumours >

Voter ID to tackle Voter Fraud

In 2016 there were 44 cases. Most of these went no where. In fact:

Election Data‏*@election*_data
As of March 2017 there were TWO successful prosecutions of electoral fraud relating to 2016. One of those was a Tory candidate

The rightwing in the US and UK have a common strategy to discourage the very poorest voters,
who are most likely to vote for better services & benefits = higher taxes

Easy to disguise this and gain support by whipping up racism against Muslims, people of colour
So white people support policies which actually hit more poor whites than poc
Like demonising welfare benefits, especially in the US

The 10 point plan.

A lot of guff. Interesting where he talks of gene therapy. Dominic Cummings may be behind more scenes than we know. He has written about Crispr. "CRISPR-enabled ‘gene drives". The power behind the throne!

dominiccummings.com/2017/01/13/unrecognised-simplicities-of-effective-action-1-expertise-and-a-quadrillion-dollar-business/

Says 'once the accounts have been settled' (like Barnier) the 350 to the NHS. Has he amnesia about how he voted to prevented securing this?

The not paying for preferential access is fair enough. He advocates for WTO, then. Stop talking about a bl**dy trade deal then.

Most of the points are not plans. Just guff. Brexit will be a success. No expansion on Cummings hobbyhorse of gene therapy, just that it has gigantic potential. Maybe talk to the machiavellian organ grinder for that one.

Did anyone see the Channel 4 news segment with Johnson in Anguilla? He said that the plane he came in on was laden down with aid for Anguilla. When the reporter checked, none of it was aid. It was the troops rations. Is everything a lie now?

And Hartley Brewer on Question time going on to Will Self that he can't talk about the dodgy effers doing Brexit. To say that was to disrespect the 52% in the Brexit vote. The vote of the 52% was to beatify dodgy effers, lazy effers and lying effers.

Uk newspapers are being very bullish about the UK and very selective about reporting on what foreign business leaders are actually saying.
They are less “news” papers and more propoganda sheets for John Bull Brexit

I get quite a different slant from German papers .....
No "awe" at Britannia Unchanged, just bemusement at UK govt ignorance about trade and lack of defined plans.
So EU businesses - especially German - are quietly making their own plans - without the UK

e.g. German bank moves out of London were just vague future wishes, now made feasible & defined timingby Brexit
e.g. UK papers very confident about retaining jobs at Vauxhall, whereas regarded as very uncertain here:

At the Frankfurt motor show, PSA Group CEO Carlos Tavares said with regard to possible plant closures or job cuts following the Brexit decision:

“The Brexit question is something we are working on as we are checking out the different scenarios.
In short, we do not know.
But we do not know because we don’t know how Brexit will unfold.
We have different plans for different scenarios.”

< same for most foreign business, just different timescales how long they will wait for UK govt to stop hiding plans - or lack of them >

"New genetic engineering techniques such as CRISPR allow radical possibilities for re-engineering organisms including humans in ways thought of as science fiction only a decade ago. We will soon be able to remake human nature itself."

From that Cummings blog, above. He doesn't seem to be referring to it as simply a therapeutic issue. In fact, he sounds a bit worrying.

Can the general public be credulous enough to believe his renewed politicking that the 350million will be saved from being in the EU and he thinks it should preferably go to the NHS?

Oh yes they can. Also six impossible things before breakfast, as long as they're all about Brexit unicorns.

The money may go to the NHS. After all, the tories claimed there was no magic money tree then found a lot of money for the dup, so it's safe to assume the magic money tree does exist but acknowledging it's existence is treason

So you remember how Japanese companies were committed to post-Brexit Britain?

www.dw.com/en/brexit-japanese-companies-set-to-leave-london/a-40523696
Brexit: Japanese companies set to leave London

Toyota and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ have expressed concerns about access to the European single market after Brexit, with experts anticipating more defections in the coming months. Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo.

Japan's largest car-maker and a major finance firm have announced that they are reconsidering their operations in Britain after the UK completes its divorce from the European Union, a serious setback to the British government's efforts to convince companies here that it will be business as usual after Brexit.

The timing of the announcements by Toyota Motor Corp and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ is unfortunate given that Theresa May, the British prime minister, was in Japan in late August on a mission specifically to reassure Japanese businesses that they will not lose out in the EU market place should they choose to keep their European headquarters in the UK after Brexit.

Didier Leroy, the executive vice president of Toyota, broke the bad news to the British government in an interview this week with Reuters at the Frankfurt car show.

"A few months ago, the UK government was saying 'We're sure we'll be able to negotiate [a deal] without any trade tax'," he said. "They are not saying that any more."

"It is clear that if we have to wait two to three more years to have clarity on this topic, we will have a big question mark about our future investment in the country," Leroy added.

After receiving written reassurances from the British government earlier this year, Toyota announced a Y35 billion (€265 million) plan to upgrade its Burnaston plant, in central England, for the production of new models. That proposal may now be in jeopardy.

^Similarly, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings has decided to apply for a license to establish a new subsidiary in Amsterdam and will be transferring its European securities operations out of London.
Japanese financial firms are fearful that Brexit will mean they lose "passporting rights" that permit them to deal with clients throughout the rest of the European bloc.^

A number of other financial firms have announced similar plans, with Nomura Holdings, Daiwa Securities, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mizuho Financial Group all unveiling plans to shift their European bases from London to Frankfurt.

"Britain leaving the European single market is becoming a clear disadvantage for Japanese companies with operations across the continent there, although there is still an expectation among most that the UK will remain at least closely connected to the European market," Martin Schulz, a senior economist with the Fujitsu Research Institute, told DW.

Bojo's approval ratings have fallen off the cliff - in advance of the UK

joining him there if his proposals are adopted:

A ConservativeHome.com survey last month showing support within the Tory party for him as the next leader had dropped from 19% to 9%

Cripes, even the Tory party 72-yr-olds have rumbled him !
He is trying a last gasp leadership challenge because he knows May can ditch him now in favour of someone with more supporters.

Liberal Democrat conference this weekend I believe.

Vince Cable has called Boris Johnson a Poundland Donald Trump.

The timing of the announcements by Toyota Motor Corp and the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ is unfortunate given that Theresa May, the British prime minister, was in Japan in late August on a mission specifically to reassure Japanese businesses

Translation: (Japanese is a very subtle language )

The timing is a perfect demonstration of how wherever Theresa May goes, nobody is listening ...

Not exactly the image the Brexiteers were selling a year ago

Burnaston very local to me
I bet most of workforce voted leave....

Reading another thread on here, I found myself vaguely wondering where Venn diagram between people who invariably pop up in parking charge threads saying "Ignore it" would intersect with people who voted leave

not quite sure why. Probably because I am feeling extra snippy

I hear you LH
Leave voters seem to be the types who dont want to either pay taxes for public services nor think the laws of the land apply to them

Leave voters seem to be the types who dont want to either pay taxes for public services nor think the laws of the land apply to them

Half of the EU seem to be the types who dont want to either pay taxes for public services nor think the laws of the EU apply to them

Leave voters seem to be the types who

aren't too fussed about keeping up with current events ?

Referring back to parking charges I find it hilarious that despite the law being fundamentally redefined in 2015 (and yes, it was in the papers, and all over the news) there are still complete thickies who pop into any discussion about parking fines with their (loud) pre-2015 advice. On the odd occasion they are challenged, rather than accept the situation, they start to argue with the facts.

Sound familiar ?

Finally the thread comes to an end. All is quiet. A few weeks later a similar thread is started. And you can already guess who the first posters are, and what they say ...

You know, for a demographic which claims to be driven by a love of Britain, quite a few Leavers don't really know too much about Britain.