Westministenders: Happy Xmas (War is Over) - if only

[RedToothBrush]

When is lying not lying. When you can get enough of your mates to agree it is not lying.

And so we have David Davis, who has made two statements to parliament which deliberately contradict each other and must constitute some sort of lie to parliament at some point however you cut it.

Will the Speaker risk the wrath of his party to uphold democratic values? We watch carefully.

Davis also reveals and exposes May too though. May one way or another is complicit in Davis’s lie, either through not doing her job in reading the reports or by protecting Davis when she knew the reports did not exist. This is gross misconduct in her inability to ensure her staff do their bloody jobs. All so she can keep her own job.

This is where whistleblowers in other institutions pop up.

It has also become apparent that May has not had THE conversation with the Cabinet over what shape Brexit should take. After 18months.
Why not? Is she incapable of consensus building or is she just incompetent?

And then we have the DUP seemingly not being properly being involved in the wording of the all important document.

Vote Leave’s Oliver Norgrove is perfectly right in saying that Hard Brexit is all but dead. Don’t let that make you feel happier. Hard Brexiteers know that there only option now, is No Deal and that’s what they will try and pursue.

There is no deal until everything is settled. Right now, nothing is settled, not even what the UK want out of Brexit, never mind the EU position.

May might well have blown the only opportunity for a deal too, because of her failure over NI and the DUP. Where does she go from here? The idea that she will stand up to anyone, is ludicrous given her track record.

We might all wish we could John Lennon's song was apt when it comes to this Christmas and Brexit, it seems the war for our future post Brexit, it seems it is only just starting.

@Peston
In case anyone thinks @michaelgove off message in his @Telegraph article saying voters can reject May’s future Brexit settlement with EU if they don’t like it, his colleagues say article was approved by Downing Street

He didn't say 'voters' though. The 'people' means something very different.

I interpreted Gove the Gobshite's piece in the Torygraph as him suggesting a future government should renege on assurances to Ireland and divorce bill and EU residents' rights.

didn't realise I'd attached the wrong picture. Thanks woman

Having now read Gove's piece my interpretation is the same as Somervilles. Forget all the stuff about "it's democracy, innit", when it comes to not going for a Hard Brexit, a certain category of Leaver do not like it at all. The only acceptable will of the people is hard brexit.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-ireland-has-just-saved-the-uk-from-the-madness-of-a-hard-brexit-1.3320096

… Ireland has just done Britain a favour of historic dimensions.
It has saved it from the madness of a hard Brexit.
…
By standing firm against their attempts to bully, cajole and blame it, Ireland has shifted Brexit towards a soft outcome.
…
instead of, as DUP leader Arlene Fosterr* insisted, Northern Ireland leaving the EU on the same terms as the UK,
the UK will have to leave the EU on the same terms as Northern Ireland

This, in effect, is what is now agreed

…
By standing firm against their attempts to bully, cajole and blame it, Ireland has shifted Brexit towards a soft outcome
Amazing really, the ROI treated as it has been by the english, behaving like it has.

I won't post a link, but if anyone can find the Leave.EU facebook page, you are assured a lot of happy reading. If you thought remainers were unhappy, just look at the spoiled dreams of some people who are getting exactly what they voted for.

It's amazing how self-confidence can build when a small country is properly supported and I don't mean by the UK - and how it can find its place in the world and not kowtow to a bully.

I thought Varadkar was very impressive in this morning's press conference - although I do think he maybe over-emphasised the fact that NI citizens could continue to avail themselves of EU citizenship if they exercised their right to Irish citizenship but there again, why shouldn't he

This re-working of Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry made me chuckle

'Drop the DUP'

I find it hard to know whether to be glad that a hard brexit looks to have been averted, or whether the opposite has happened and it's killed off any hope of a soft brexit. The fact that the Barmy Arms has re-opened with the usual empty blather, makes me think soft brexit is dead, but the fact that Farage is annoyed suggests not.

However, things like access to Euratom, Open Skies etc., etc. have still to be agreed. Now since Euratom initially was a separate treaty, I imagine we could pay to access that still. Ditto Erasmus, because again I think non EU states also partake. I can't see just saying that we will have regulatory harmonisation, or whatever the form of words was, will be sufficient.

I do find it funny, however, that Leave.EU are slagging off Gove and Johnson for putting Tory party harmony first. The Tories have been putting the party first for 18 months so it's not new.

Like everyone I've no idea how this will pan out, or if this is soft brexit.

The Lords are listening. Khan's doing and impact assessment for London. EU flags flying all over Steve Baker's town hall today. Not trying isn't really an option. When they do use expressions like 'the people' it's funny how many 1000s of pro EU alliances have sprung up.

I liked what you wrote earlier about the next generation's problems having no reference to what the previous one was fretting about Peregrina . History does move on apace.

From what has been agreed today, staying in euroatom with a tweak or two and 'associate membership' is very doable without losing face that we didn't know wtf we were talking about when we suggested it.

I'm not sure how I feel either. I think it's cautious relief at this stage but I think I'm very conscious that it's likely to only be a temporary feeling and I still worry that the prospect of no deal is very much still there and there is still an incentive for it in some quarters if things start looking too Scandinavian.

I think I'm glad we've not thrown toys out of the pram and walked out of talks. (Yet). Like I really thought we might do. I'll take being wrong on that one.

As for Brexiteers. Well given I said before the referendum that they'd all been encouraged to form their own individual vision of what Brexit would look like and how that made pleasing them all impossible, I'll just smile and nod that they won and say that they knew what they were voting for. That's one I'll be smugly right on.

Anyone getting a sense of a Hunt Gove partnership forming. Hunt as potential pm and give as chancellor? Boris I think will be jilted once again at the altar having served his purpose, when the time comes.

Love it, Shizzle. Thank you!

That's not my Brexit, my passport's still red

That's not my Brexit, the queue at immigration is too long

That's not my Brexit, my health care on the Costa Del Sol is too expensive

That's not my Brexit, where's that £350m a week for the NHS?

That's not my Brexit, the border's too hard

That's not my Brexit, the border's not hard enough

I think a book has legs!

I started the day pleased that the worst of hard Brexits had been avoided for the moment. Looking at the press coverage has made me feel very sad though. I think the acceptance of the right wing press of leaving on any terms has made me question if they expected a harder fight back. How have we given up so much so easily and on such a narrow majority ? I have left Britain and need to focus on finding a new long term home for my family, I thought I had given up been emotionally involved with the U.K. but it isn't that easy it turns out. I am still sad and angry and what I and my DC have lost.

The sheer size of the EU means that it can easily afford to financially support RoI infrastructure in transport to the EU mainland,, communications, power etc to minimise Brexit fallout for the RoI.
For ROI, this is why making a fuss now is important. If the UKs fan spreads its shit on them, they will need the EU's help.

Ah yes, 'the people'. Not voters. Very different.

Anna Soubry was her scathing self on Thursday night, especially towards the use of the terms 'the people' and 'citizens of nowhere'. She said telling roughly half of the nation and most of its youth they don't matter is a massive mistake. Wish she'd defy the whip a bit more often.

Here's the previously-mentioned Dominic Raab interview on Channel 4 News yesterday. I thought he was very offensive and rude to Guru-Murthy, who asked some probing questions and didn't back down.
My take on it was: 'this is a brilliant hard-won deal, how dare you media types criticise or question it?'

www.channel4.com/news/dominic-raab-on-brexit-deal-its-your-wilful-inability-to-accept-that-weve-actually-made-a-positive-step-forward

Raab did his best to patronise Kirsty Wark too but she wasn’t having it. Underneath his bluster was a pretty frank admission that the U.K. had caved. All he could do in the end was to keep insisting that the PM had got the U.K. to the next stage in an effort to avoid hard questions on the actual agreement this week. Good to see the hard Brexiters squirming.

I quote like this from chuka umuna
twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/939216085844361216

Rabb just looks like a weasel. Spin, spin, spin. KGM would have a hide like a rhino in that job and he had Rabb on the ropes anyway.

OlennasWimple

This made me smile

Oliver Norgrove @ olivernorgrove
Dressed up inadvertently as the EU flag this evening. I apologise