Westminstenders: The Maddest of May and Boris's Dare

[RedToothBrush]

Boris Johnson just dared May to fire him.

That's what his little rant about £350 million buses is.

Meanwhile its been pointed out that HMRC literally are incapable of handling a no deal and can only cope with an EEA / EFTA deal with no tariffs.

And given how good and on time the government are with computer systems even in a best case scenario are extremely unlikely to crack it in time.

Which makes Hammond's talk of a civil contingence plan, look, well half arsed and lacking.

We also wouldn't have planes able to fly to Europe under a no deal as we would no longer be part of Open Skies. This could leave thousands stranded. But no biggie there.

Meanwhile if the Leave Alliance have things right, May is about to serve our one year notice on leaving the EEA making all these things a reality.

Which is less like shooting yourself in the head and more like shooting yourself in the head, chest, foot, arm, leg and face (for a second time), whilst being run over at the same time.

But hey, Boris Johnson has it sussed in his 10 point plan. Especially the point where he says Brexit will be a success.

If you call success ending democracy, becoming a dictatorship, starving everyone, bankrupting the country and causing civil unrest.

Rule Britannia.

NHS letter demands eight-day-old baby provide identity documents to prove right to free healthcare

Erroneous letter from NHS trust states baby born in UK to British parents may need to pay for treatment because she is not 'ordinarily resident' in country

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/nhs-letter-newborn-baby-eight-day-old-identity-documents-free-healthcare-right-violet-nik-horne-a7955211.html

Baby found using 'foreign' name in built up area.

Baby found using 'foreign' name in built up area.

In the last year, both MrsLH and DS have been complimented on "how well they speak the language".

Ah yes, the y2k denials. I had a summer job running patches on machines. That was definitely before 1999 too. A crisis averted seems to lose significance. Those same sort of people will become brexit crisis deniers if some miracle happens and we suddenly pull out of this mess.

My poor dc are in trouble. Their surname is usually assumed to be Asian (it's French origin but looks similar to a well known Asian surname) and their first names aren't unforeign like either. It's usually a surprise to people when they see my dc as they don't look like people assume.

That should not be happening. A British birth certificate should allow a baby to receive health care and go to school

I think we're moving away from such an outdated - and frankly inflexible system as "certificates" and "requirements"

Following on from BoJos grumbles, we really need to move towards a system of feeling, looking and sounding. So people who look, sound and feel "British" get treated, and people who don't .... well, quite frankly perhaps we don't want them here anyway.

Remember: Brexit is full of opportunity

but you can wash your hands of it and say it's someone else's mistake.

Which is something I profoundly disagree with.

Anyone acting on behalf of the state should be bound by the same laws that bind the state. But the UK is happy that once the state pays someone else to do it's work, it's not longer culpable.

Look how outsource care homes can evade laws that councils would be required to follow. Or how the private company ACPO can sidestep FOI requests.

The US has a completely opposite view: anyone hired by the state is bound by the constitution. So no hiring private detectives to break into a suspect and bypass the 4th amendment ....

Racial profiling based on colour, features, or furrin name
The NHS is safe in Tory hands

Since that baby has already had a run-in with the law before she's 8 days old,
she is clearly a danger to the country and must expect a deportation order shortly

Racial profiling based on colour, features, or furrin name

But still, control

Ohhhhh
I think this is interesting...
I've recently bought some stuff for xmas from very.com (I join every year prior to Xmas to get the 30% deals :))
They sent me a survey request - the usual order feedback stuff THEN lots of questions about how I felt about the economy!! Whether I thought it would get better or worse in the future.....
🤔

(paywall)* *

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/19/boris-johnson-backs-brink-theresa-may-seal-cabinet-brexit-truce/

Theresay May has made peace with Boris Johnson by securing a Cabinet truce over Britain’s future payments to the EU.

The deal involves paying substantial sums to the EU until at least 2020,
but no further payments after Britain’s transition period.

It is a compromise between Boris Johnson’s position and that of Philip Hammond, the Chancellor,
and is expected to be part of the Prime Minister’s Brexit speech in Florence on Friday.

It came after a frenzied day on which the Foreign Secretary’s allies suggested he would be prepared to resign from the Cabinet over Mrs May’s Brexit strategy,
only for him to apparently pull back from the brink after the Prime Minister brokered a truce.
....
In response, Mrs May confirmed to him that Friday’s speech will make clear that the era of large payments will stop when the transition period ends,
and is understood to have tweaked her speech to address some of the points he raised in his 4,200-word Brexit essay in last Saturday’s Daily Telegraph.
....
Mrs May has also made sure the speech satisfies her Europhile Chancellor, by offering to continue making full payments to the EU during a two-year transition period.

Mr Hammond favours a lengthy “status quo” transition to make it easier for businesses to adjust, and he is also understood to have had input into the speech.

As a result Mr Johnson, Mr Hammond and David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, will now accompany Mrs May to Florence in a show of unity for a speech that is intended to break the deadlock over Brexit talks.
.....
The payment of around £10 billion a year during the transition period would not settle all of the UK’s accounts in Brussels’ eyes,
but would be a gesture of Britain’s commitment to pay its dues,
with the intention that the final amount would be negotiated alongside a trade deal.
....
But relations thawed after Mrs May made it clear to Mr Johnson that she had no intention of pursuing a “Swiss-style” arrangement with the EU that would have involved paying up to £4 billion per year to access the single market,
as well as yoking the UK to vast amounts of EU regulation.
< tired old dogma. Looks like rejecting EEA/EFTA - for now, at least. Maybe the first steps towards this, though as reality hits later >
....
There was evidence that Mr Johnson may have been forced to back down after facing a grassroots revolt within his party.

Constituency chairmen contacted by The Telegraph accused him of “damaging” the party, with more than half of those spoken to saying his article was wrong or unhelpful.

Some described him as an “oaf” or a “buffoon” while others said they wished he would “keep quiet”.

Bernard Bateman, chairman of the Skipton and Ripon Conservative Association in North Yorkshire,
said that public interventions by ministers over Brexit were “losing us support in the country”.

He said: “They’ve got to keep quiet. Wash your dirty linen in private, don’t bring it out to the public all the time.
If they want to be at each other’s throats, let them be at each other’s throats, but in private.”
....
Only seven out of 24 chairmen who spoke to The Telegraph said they supported Mr Johnson.

This newspaper also understands that senior UK officials have been briefing EU capitals on Friday’s speech to reassure them that Mrs May has not been blown off course by Mr Johnson’s intervention.

Senior Whitehall officials said Mrs May had come to accept that it was necessary to accept a “high alignment” model for at least two years after Brexit in order to create time and space for the UK to develop its future trading relationship.

It remains far from certain, however, that Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and the European member states will be satisfied by a UK offer to pay £10 billion per year into the EU coffers in 2019 and 2020 as a goodwill gesture.
They believe Britain should pay £60 billion or more.

EU sources said that the EU would “not negotiate by speeches”
and would be looking for concrete action on citizens’ rights and the financial settlement when Brexit negotiations restart next week.

An alternative perspective from Canada of May's meeting with Trudeau. "Analysis: UK PM Theresa May, desperate for post-Brexit deals, plays a weak hand". A bit different from the "positive meeting" message that was promulgated by the BBC and our MSM which talks about the promise of a "seamless deal" it can only be seamless if Canada still has access to the Single Market

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/politics/theresa-may-weak-post-brexit-trade-deals-1.4294708

Mr Hammond favours a lengthy “status quo” transition to make it easier for businesses to adjust, and he is also understood to have had input into the speech.

I think what he is really after is a status quo extension, which would give us the 5-10 years to put the infrastructure in place. Meanwhile the electorate will have changed. Don't necessarily expect it to change in Remainers favour; the very elderly who were adults during the war and tended to vote Remain, will have died, but the baby boomers who tended to vote Leave will still be around. But then some younger pro Remain will have started voting, plus EU citizens married to Britons who decided to take out citizenship to protect their future. So it could still be close.

Prettybird Your link confirms what we thought about "all those countries rushing to do a deal with the UK"
< a fond Brexiters delusion >

Astonishing difference in that Canada report to what MSM here are saying, not just the Tory ones. Misplaced patriotism, like being convinced the England football team will win this time ?
I especially noted:

"as Britain turns to Canada and other nations to try to shore up its trade networks,
its negotiators face a similar problem: everyone knows they are desperate for a deal."

"Until at least 2020" means at most 21 extra months

Hardly a "lengthy" transition"

Reading between the lines of what is proposed - ie not even a Swiss style membership of the Single market - we are still attempting to eat our cake and have it. As an absolute minimum, if we are not prepared to abide by EU regulations, that will mean inevitable NTBs - and the consequent necessary check at borders. And financial passporting will be a No No.

BigChoc - as a proud scot, we just laugh at the English media's obsession with "England going to win this time around"

We take sweepstakes as to how soon the commentators can bring England into the conversation, even when two totally different teams are playing answer: no long at all

"the era of large payments will stop when the transition period ends"

So this assumes we will have a very short "transition" period, followed by WTO rules? Because we will have to pay something if we intend to join EEA / EFTA...

Brexit might be a good thing for the England football team. All the foreign players would have to go home, so we would have to train our own up. I can't believe there aren't enough football crazy lads who are capable of Premier league play.

I am deliberately excluding the women's game - I think they do win stuff.

Did anyone hear Owen Paterson being questioned by Humphrys on R4 this morning on possible food shortages and price hikes due to lack of customs arrangements? All Paterson could do was keep repeating the mantra about frictionless trade and free trade agreements and how it was an opportunity for UK food producers to fill the gap.

missmoon - you're not on message missing the point: we are going to be able to create the equivalent of EFTA, with full access to the Single Market but without having to pay anything on or having to accept FoM

How will we manage this? "Because the EU needs us more than we need them" ....or "because German car manufacturers...."

I had to turn off Owen Paterson. I always have to turn off Owen Paterson.

Silly me!!

I was thinking about infrastructure provision and agree completely with Misti above. I had some peripheral involvement in the Heathrow East Terminal development which knocked down terminals 1-3 over a staged period and replaced with a shiny new one.

Planning permission was granted in May 2007 for the development. The first flight took place in 2014 and it was officially opened in June 2014.

That's 7 years from planning permission on land which was owned by the developer. That seems to be a pretty reasonable development period for major infrastructure works.

Terminal 5 took 8 years to get planning permission plus a further 10 years to build...

How long would it take to do a compulsory purchase order for Dover, plus planning permission, plus the necessary works?? If you do it properly and legally , I'd expect 20 years...

That pesky Irish border again:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41320740

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/britain-first-paul-golding-jayda-fransen-charged-religious-harassment-muslim-gang-rape-trial-kent-a7957486.html
Britain first charged with religious harrasment.

And
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/samim-bigzad-amber-rudd-deport-afghanistan-contempt-high-court-home-office-kabul-pilot-plane-a7957451.html
AmberbRudd could be charged for contempt to the Court.

It is/would be nice to see the justice following its path and put the people who deserve it on trial.