Westministenders: The Art of the Deal

[RedToothBrush]

Well Trump seems to have put his foot in it.

Not that this should come as a surprise. For all the talk of closer ties with the US that was never going to happen. All that was need was for Trump to over step once too many.

By chance (?) Barnier also raised questions about our commitment to working with the EU on security.

Its almost as if we are being asked to choose whom we look to for security.

Meanwhile it sounds like the divorce bill is sorted - though this may not be as settled as that, if it comes with conditions. The deal might also be backtracked on, seeing as that appears to be the done thing presently.

Talks on Ireland are stalemated with Ireland threating to veto. No sign of a breakthrough here yet.

Talks on EU citz rights are reportedly going backwards (again) rather than going forward.

All of this is theatre for a British audience though, with the UK agreeing to everything. Because they gave again their cards when a50 was triggered.

The crunch is coming on whether we move to stage two before Christmas. We have no time to lose.

I noticed that too Cailleach

I also noted that she said that Junker had confirmed that there were only a couple of things left to resolve. Given that there were only three items in the pre-negotiation phase, that means she was admitting that 2 out of the 3 items were still needing to be agreed - only a week from the EU Summit (already deferred from the last one) that would decide whether sufficient progress has been made to allow trade negotiations to start.

Assuming that the UK financial offer is now deemed to be sufficient, that just leaves the easy topics of citizens' rights and the NI border.

Easy peasy

Tripping over all the cans they've kicked down the road, as mused by Jo Maugham on Monday, seems really apt

Laura Kuenssberg‏
@bbclaurak

1. Hammond confirms publicly what everyone in SW1 knew privately - cabinet is still to have THE big discussion about the kind of Brexit they ultimately think we should have - DUP row has hugely ramped up the pressure for it to happen
2. Cabinet ministers believe they were promised that discussion by Christmas - on the face of it it's impossible to believe they still have't worked out what their big picture vision is
3. But in real life, it's not impossible at all, putting off the conversation is the way that May has chosen to keep the show on the road
4. And by delaying the discussion, she's delaying the potential bust ups, or resignations, or chaos of a kind that we haven't seen yet
5. For all that it has been extremely rocky, and to use Whitehall speak, sub-optimal, govt has not been losing votes, or ministers over Brexit, and has just about contained rebellions
6. As and when the PM actually tries to get the Cabinet to agree what the world should look like after 2021, after Brexit, and after the transition period, all hell might break loose because she has no majority and simply, members of govt want different things

@bbclaurak

1. Hammond confirms publicly what everyone in SW1 knew privately - cabinet is still to have THE big discussion about the kind of Brexit they ultimately think we should have - DUP row has hugely ramped up the pressure for it to happen

pain
Isn't that rather quaint and English that they've not discussed something which might cause unpleasantness.

"chaos of a kind that we haven't seen yet"

Oh good. A different order of chaos. A different magnitude and quality of chaos. As yet unseen.

We're going to need a thesaurus to discuss the Brexit Christmas of 2017.

'Omnishambles' simply won't do.

What is stronger than "clusterfuck" ?

Isn't it telling that my phone now recognises the word "clusterfuck"

May is firefighting day by day just to hold her Government together. There is no plan beyond this. The only thing the conservatives can agree on is that they should remain in power at any cost, so that is what they are doing. Pretty shit for the rest of us of course.

The only thing the conservatives can agree on is that they should remain in power at any cost, so that is what they are doing.

History tells us that things rarely -if ever - work out well for incumbents like this ...

If anyone is interested, I have a set of plans for a guillotine that I downloaded a while back, and I could probably knock up the blade released in a workshop.

Understand Brexit Committee reconvening soon to debate its view on whether Davis fulfilled terms of binding resolution on impact studies or whether it is contempt

Point here, about the balance of that committee. The committee has not been able to reach agreement on a number of issues as a result. All committees have a government majority thanks to how they were rigged.

The 21 members of the Committee:
Hillary Benn (LAB) CHAIR
Peter Bone (CON)
Joanna Cherry QC (SNP)
Christopher Chope (CON)
Steven Crabb (CON)
Jonathan Djanogly (CON)
Richard Graham (CON)
Peter Grant (SNP)
Wera Hobhouse (LD)
Andrea Jenkyns (CON)
Stephen Kinnock (LAB)
Jeremy Lefroy (CON)
Pat McFadden (LAB)
Craig Mackinlay (CON)
Seema Malhotra (LAB)
Jacob Rees-Mogg (CON)
Emma Reynolds (LAB)
Stephen Timms (LAB)
John Whittingdale (CON)
Hywel Williams (PLAID)
Sammy Wilson (DUP)

That's 10 CON, 1 DUP, 6 LAB, 2 SNP, 1 PLAID and 1 LD.

Spot the problem.

It requires someone from the CONs and DUP to throw Davis under the bus to even get a majority. Most CONs on that list are arch Brexiteers (or under investigation...)

The one person in that that might through a spanner in the works, is Rees-Mogg due to being a stickler for protocol. Whether he will, I think is highly unlikely though. He is an arch brexiteer after all.

But at the same time, bringing down Davis might also be politically worthwhile too. Brexit Opportunities you see...

It's going to be interesting watching them try and argue that he has met the resolution. Hasn't this gone to the Speaker as well for consideration as to whether Davis was in contempt or is just the committee?

Not too sure Mogg will throw that spanner. This was his position today

Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Conservative, says is is concerned about the government honouring parliament. If these impact assessments did not exist, the government did not have to publish anything, did it?

Davis agrees.

Q: So the government has generously gone beyond what was required?

Davis accepts that.

Rees-Mogg says the government looked at the wording of “an incompetent motion” and did its best to comply.

Davis accepts that.

But David Davis is so obviously in contempt of parliament for something (whether lying before or lying now) and all that info is out there for the masses to look at and digest. If this committee decides to protect him 11:10 - isn't that going to create uproar both in and out of parliament? If this committee decides he did nothing wrong - is that it? problem gone? Or can these people be held to account too? Eventually some of these types are going to end up running scared - the more they fudge now the longer their jail sentences after the Nuremberg style trials.

Hasn't this gone to the Speaker as well for consideration as to whether Davis was in contempt or is just the committee?

Yes, but the speaker abdicated some of that responsibility by deferring to the committee's finding first.

I'm just trying to concoct the hard-right headbanger position on why this is all fine, just fine. Something like: Why faff around wasting time predicting the impacts when you could just do a hard Brexit and get the actual impact without having to do any assessment?

I'm really warming to the idea that all of a sudden the impetus (i.e foreign interference, money and trolling) have suddenly evaporated and Brexiteers are suddenly feeling a tad exposed. There's certainly an interesting lack of the hysterical "traitor"/"get over it"/"we won" instaresponses that have been common up until now.

I suspect that the original "Plan A" at this point was to have some sort of internecine elimination round of Brexiteers, and then anoint the new leader.

Look like "Plan B" then.

Ah, thanks for clarifying that Red. Wonder what the Speaker will do if the committee decides he isn't in contempt, but he clearly has lied at some point...

If Bercow is waiting for the committee's findings first, that doesn't mean that the way in which they come to conclusions won't influence him, it would probably go against parliamentary protocol for him to take the first step without them anyway.

Unfortunately for the Brexit Sel Comm, the Cons on it have proven themselves utterly untrustworthy by refusing to sign off at least two reports, iirc, because they don't like the findings rather than because they think they are inaccurate. If they gang up to save DD, Bercow could well see that as putting Brexit above principle and go ahead with any contempt procedures anyway.

Anyone who is not embarrassed by this government (and quite a lot of MPs) has clearly had some sort of shame-bypass. It's just grim.

Sylvia Hermon is very good - its the NI Affairs committee she's on and she is very engaged in their Brexit border inquiry. She seems perpetually mildly horrified by how bad it all is. IIRC she sits as an independent MP now.

Lurking - I can't find the meaning of being in or on the Privy Council? Can you elaborate please?

In any case, I don't see anything sinister about Starmer being made a Privy Councillor - he needs to receive information on Privy Council terms (which happens far more than that Wikipedia page suggests) because of his role as Shadow Brexit Secretary, and it's a bit of an oversight that this wasn't taken care of already.

Faisal Islam‏ @faisalislam
DUP’s @ianpaisleymp speaking against Hermon amendment to EU Withdrawal Bill says the European Union has “nothing to do with the Good Friday Agreement” apart from the fact that @MichelBarnier turned up for a photo-op when it was signed

Hard right headbanger position defending why it's no bother not to have conducted impact analyses:

1. It's too hard!

Richard Graham, a Conservative, goes next.

Q: How would you be able to do an impact assessment for the financial sector without know what the Brexit outcome will be, or whether there will be a free trade deal with the US?

With difficulty, Davis says. He says it would be very hard because there are so many potential outcomes.

2. The studies are stupid

Davis says when these sectoral analyses were carried out, the intention was to help the government understand what the impact of Brexit would be.

He says he is not a fan of economic models, because they have all been proven wrong.

3. Really stupid

Davis says government is planning impact assessments later in negotiations.

Davis says there would have been no point in doing impact assessments too early. He says the value of that exercise would have been close to zero.

4. Because that's not even what we were talking about

Q: In September you told a Lords committee that “we will carry out quantitative assessments”.

Davis says that is not the same as an impact assessement.

He says he has been using the term sectoral analysis. That is different, he says.

Q: But you have told us you have not assessed how impact will affect different sectors of the economy?

Davis says they are different things. The government has been working on things like how you ensure you continue to have an independent nuclear inspection agencies. These do not have numbers attached; they are problems that require actions.

5. Because we might also be a bit stupid

Q: We got 850 pages of documents. How much material was not submitted to us?

Davis says he does not know exactly. He does not think it was a lot. He says one issue that that many of these reports have been written three times. He says the first drafts were often not very good.

Lurking - I can't find the meaning of being in or on the Privy Council? Can you elaborate please?

There are loads of privy councillors. "The Privy Council" is an ad-hoc meeting of such councillors who advise the crown. So a person can be a privy councillor, and never be asked to attend a meeting.

Thinking about impact assessments...

Once upon a time all major government policies had to have a full economic impact assessment completed, involving a lot of work for government economists as well as policy officials. These had to be signed off by a group of economists at DTI / DBERR / DBIS (ie the department responsible for business) before the policy could go to the relevant Cabinet committee for clearance by Cabinet members. It could then be published, accompanied by the economic impact assessment.

This process was tweaked from time to time, and exceptionally could be expedited or, very exceptionally, circumvented. I would agree with DD's guesstimate that it would take 10-50 years to produce fully costed impact assessments.

However, there are other types of impact assessment that policy officials used to have to produce, such as equality impact assessments, which were more narrative and were useful both to flush out any unintentional consequences but also to show that the policy had indeed been well considered and not written on the back of a fag packet in the pub.

I don't see why this sort of impact assessment couldn't be produced in relatively short order, unless civil servants have been told not to do so

Faisal Islam‏
@faisalislam
Opposition to support Lady Hermon Withdrawal Bill amendment on Good Friday Agreement, and Government says will whip against - some Tories to vote for it - worth watching vote

Thanks Lurking, maybe I'm being a bit dim here. The reason that there are lots of Privy Councillors is that they basically have the gig for life, but my understanding is that they have the same rights to access information as more active PC members, it's just that in practical terms it's very unlikely that, say, Owen Arthur (former PM of Barbados) is going to actually attend a meeting to exercise that right