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.

I'm also starting to get worried about my bank accounts. Even though they were opened when I was a British citizen, they were opened so long ago (my own bank account nearly 40 years ago and the joint account with a different bank 24 years ago before we were married ) that I'm sure I never showed a passport definitely not for my own bank account

And I have a very German surname.

I was naturalised when I was 10 - so well over 50 years ago - but have no idea where my naturalisation certificate is. Don't even need it to renew my passport - which I've had since I was 13 - but maybe I'm being naive.

I keep wondering what it is that people like May want.

Once the % of EU citizens living in the UK is reduced to a minimum, what next?

What's the ideal society / situation May's party seeks to implement?

What sort of economic, cultural, social reality do they envisage for the country?

The only thing they are focusing on is foreigners an cutting back public services, but what kind of country will remain after that? Why would people NOT want a fair and balanced society where the majority can live in decent conditions and with purpose and dignity?

They keep telling us what they don't want but what is it they want? Why would anyone want a fascist UK? It's bonkers. Generally speaking people have humanity in them, and most people aren't evil even torieshow can they be convinced that they are doing the right thing?

The rules about a lot of things have been tightened up in the last ten years or so, supposedly to do with money laundering. When we went to a solicitor about seven years ago we had to produce some ID - passports in our case. We didn't mind too much, we hadn't been to that firm for about 20 years, but the solicitor told us that this rule had caused extreme annoyance to clients who had regular dealings with the firm and were well known to the staff. But still, why didn't someone Senior in the firm take a stand, and say that they knew this client, and tell the Govt where to get off? What would have happened to the firm? Probably nothing.

And when is Corbyn going to start roaring? He did so well in the elections, what next, what now? Where is that wave of opposition?

'Keep calm and carry' on was probably an ok attitude during war time but now?

I keep wondering what it is that people like May want.

I think May simply wants to reduce immigration - the task that Cameron originally set her, and like the goody two shoes she was brought up to be - she is trying to fulfill that. She is not a person of vision, so won't have stopped to consider the wider ramifications.

I've just spotted that other thread worldisfullofidiots. Wow. It's simply delightful.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/education-41358791/immigration-check-wrong-bank-accounts-will-be-frozen

'Philip Augar told the Today programme names will appear more than once and the wrong bank accounts will be frozen."

I posted the link to the Carnegie UK Trust report on the UK's digital future post Brexit to my timeline on FB, asking for some of my friends who are experts in the field, to give their opinion.

One of them - a regulatory telecoms lawyer - has printed it off to read later but has said "I have a meeting with Govt to talk telecoms and brexit next week. They just told me what they want to discuss.......immigration. Seriously WTF?"

What happens if the EU just say no to whatever Theresa May offers today as I imagine they will if she hasn't figured out a solution for Northern Ireland?

The "EU" isn't listening and doesn't care. Certainly not by the front pages of leading non-English news Euro news sites.

The EU said right at the beginning that the don't negotiate by speeches. If Theresa May has something new to put to the EU, then she needs to ensure it's packaged up so David Davies can't lose it, and send it to the next round of negotiations.

If - as will happen - the UK press (Mail, Express and BBC) choses to characterise the lack of EU response as "No" ... well. It's a little like you writing a letter to your local paper that you went round to the house where you bank manager lives; shouted at it through megaphone asking for a loan; and grumbling that not hearing back was a "no".

Exactly right LH.

This entire stunt is for the consumption of a domestic audience, with specific reference to that part of the domestic audience who get no information from anywhere but the foreign-owned British press.

^@jameschappers
In 18 months' time, Brexit will be like the Iraq War. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone who admits to supporting it #stopbrexit^

You heard it here first ;) I seem to remember discussing this several threads ago.

Are there any brexiters left (excluding paid agitators) who think brexit is going well? My RL experience is that leave voters are either hiding below the parapet and well on the way to denying that they ever ticked the leave box (I suspect my mum is in this category), or are still firmly in the leave camp but wondering why the govt is making such a mess of it. Don't know anyone in RL who (a) still actively wants to brexit and (b) thinks the govt is doing a good job. They seem to exist entirely on MN and other social media.

A lot of back office systems simply can't handle dual nationality.

So what does a UK-Irish national declare ? They'll be forced to put "UK" citizen - and an Irish citizen disappears off the books.

When I worked in wealth management software, it was interesting to note that the (very expensive) systems were able to record multiple citizenships so that portfolios could be leveraged for maximum efficiency.

It would take more than the margins of this note to detail just how non-prepared UK IT banking systems are for "project John Bull", and besides, it's something I get paid for, so until the government forces me to work for free (which they can now do) I'll keep my powder dry.

Just heard on R4 news that the banks are being asked to cross check accounts against a list of names supplied to them by the Home Office. Obviously there won't be any mistakes on that list then...

Are there any brexiters left (excluding paid agitators) who think brexit is going well?
The ones I know are "bored of talking about it, we just need to get on with it now.
I do however know some lukewarm remainers who are going more leave because they are worried about the noise from Europe about a closer union and they think Junckers is being obstructive.

We know that the banks will make a mess - maybe by accident. We have already seen how schools and hospitals have dealt with the same issue. Hospitals try to bill UK citizens because they have foreign names; schools decide to make up the rules and start insisting on seeing passports from black and brown children, for information which is voluntary. Yes, it will go well.

Re the telecoms lawyer. Isn't the answer here a firm 'The agenda is telecoms and Brexit, no other items are on the agenda' and walk out if the Govt side try to talk about immigration.

What time is the speech?

I remember having to take my birth certificate to Barclays in order to open an account, back in the 90s. My DDs in the past few years have also had to take a birth certificate along to the branch, again with Barclays. Other banks may be different; I'm sure Barclays won't have any qualms aiding May on her poisonous crusade though.

Speech 14:25 our time. I like to use a 24 hour clock. But I shouldn't really, I should stick to am and pm because that's British, except the abbreviations are Latin.

On the subject of banks - well building societies in this case - the Abbey National froze my children's accounts because they hadn't been used for a long time. They were asked to produce either driving licences or council tax bills to unlock them. I asked the Society how many 12 and 14 year olds would be in possession of either. Realising their stupidity they unlocked the accounts. We promptly withdrew the money and put it elsewhere. Stupidity is not new.

Just heard on R4 news that the banks are being asked to cross check accounts against a list of names supplied to them by the Home Office.

So we are back to that moronic arse-about-face of looking for illegal immigrants in datasets of legal immigrants ?

Peregrina Not sure I will get any work done today my boss has 'caught' me twice on MN this morning

I read an interesting article about Kamila Shamsie in ES magazine yesterday. Herm pst recent book Home Fire is about citizenship, identity and Islamophobia. It's apparently highly acclaimed

www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/esmagazine/author-of-the-moment-kamila-shamsie-on-what-it-is-to-be-a-muslim-today-a3639416.html

Shamsie herself has said that she would not have dared to write the book before becoming a British citizen, in 2013, for fear that someone at the UK Border Agency or Home Office — one of its central characters is a hardliner Conservative Home Secretary of British Muslim descent — would have taken against the novel and used it as an excuse to turn down her citizenship application.

‘But also, having so recently become a citizen, I was paying attention to all the stuff around citizenship laws,’ says Shamsie, referring to then Home Secretary Theresa May’s plans to enforce laws that revoked the citizenship of naturalised Britons (as well as dual passport-holders) if suspected of terrorism, with the potential of rendering someone stateless. ‘Because of where I come from, I have a particular antenna for when democratic governments behave in ways I associate with dictatorships,’ adds Shamsie, who lived under military rule in 1980s Karachi.

The experience of having lived her earliest years under dictatorship and having witnessed the violent volatility of mid-1990s Pakistan inform how she interprets contemporary Britain ­— and how little she is prepared to take for granted

Good time to become conversant in cryptocurrencies ... Oh, I already am

and one more soppy/paste job

Kamila Shamsie ssays in the interview:

Last year, however, post Brexit vote, for the very first time here, she had a piece of direct racist abuse hurled at her. ‘I’m aware that it’s because people don’t necessarily recognise me as Pakistani that certain things don’t happen. Late at night, as I was walking to a bus stop, a very drunk young man shouted, “F* off you bitch, go back to where you came from.” I walked on thinking, “Oh that’s interesting, is he the only white person in London who has ever recognised me as Pakistani?” And then I realised, “No, he just recognised me as foreign, and now that’s enough.”

So we are back to that moronic arse-about-face of looking for illegal immigrants in datasets of legal immigrants ?

Makes sense if your starting point is that all migrants are assumed undesirable anyway. If your fishing expedition catches a few illegal immigrants, that's good. If it creates a hostile environment that upsets or even scares away large numbers of legal immigrants (after all, you would expect that the majority of bank account holders are doing so legally), that's even better.