Westministenders: Rebel Rebel Your Brexit is a Mess.

[RedToothBrush]

Hot Tramp, I love you so!

The European Parliament have agreed to progress talks to the next stage. Despite Brexiteers saying its not legally binding, it is apparent that the EU certainly disagree.

Not only that, but the wording of the deal goes further. It binds us to not being able to agree and new trade deals for 2 years.

The All Important Amendment 7 to the Great Repel Bill has been successful. May’s power grab has a set back.

By just FOUR votes the government was defeated. How May will be regretting that pointless election tonight.

Parliament will have a meaningful vote on the exit terms.

But don’t be too excited. Brussels might not like this as May can not guarantee the UK will agree to a deal. It means the the EU are negotiating with parliament NOT May now.

There is also the suggestion that the mood of parliament is changing and is beginning to lean more towards a EFTA / EEA type deal.

But equally this could also send us to the brink with a deal from the EU that could be rejected by parliament.

The stakes just got higher.

(turns to SwedishEdith)

thanks for showing the meeting some statistics, we'll be in touch. Now, over to Barry, to tell us what the people think ....

There are so many hidden areas where Brexit is having a negative impact.

My dh works with multi-nationals in an advisory capacity. Many of them are US companies that have branches in many EU Member States. He reports that as they make investments and future plans for the next five years, they are saying "well let's just leave the UK out of those for now because we have no idea what is happening". The issue of visas is just one in a thousand that they have no idea about!

My US based DB (who is now a US citizen) is setting up a company in a very high tech area with some backing from his academic contacts. Because of it's nature, it's already linked to a lot of European universities. They won't be considering anyone who isn't an EU citizen, if/when they need to have an EU presence. Nothing anyone can do about that.

About the Marshall Aid, I note how Keynes referred to it as Dunkirk. Now, we in the UK have portrayed this as a great victory, which it certainly was in getting the personnel back. In terms of losing most of their equipment and no longer being in a position to fight for a few years, we have to draw a blank on that.

But my goodness the calumny heaped upon me by Leavers when I said that the French thought we had betrayed them at Dunkirk. Not a matter of stating a fact, how dare I not be patriotic etc. etc. - and these from people, some of whom didn't know that NI was part of the UK, or knew that Gibraltar was 'ours' but laboured under the belief that it was an island.

To continue in SwedishEdith's vein.

NZ has 110 sheep per square km.

So if we want a comparably sized agricultural industry, we are going to be sharing every sq km of the UK with 1700 sheep and 580 cows (plus 280-odd people).

It's going to be crowded, and probably a bit smelly.

It kickstarted my UK employability at a much better level.

Ditto for my DD, whose career now could do with another boost via an EU placing, which Brexit has well and truly messed up.

But we're getting rid of a load of people so that'll help make some space for the cows and sheep. Eventually we may have to go so far as removing everyone who can't prove lineage back to Anglo Saxon times, but hey it's a price worth paying right?

But my goodness the calumny heaped upon me by Leavers when I said that the French thought we had betrayed them at Dunkirk

Leavers, or Brexiteers ?

If the latter, then once again, their cretinous lack of any knowledge of history means they are completely of the fact that in 1940, the UK bombed the French Fleet, killing thousands of French soldiers.

The restraint shown by the French since, has been incredible. As is their devotion to the British war dead.

Eventually we may have to go so far as removing everyone who can't prove lineage back to Anglo Saxon times,

such as those Huguenot Farages ?

There's got to be some bonus lh

.

I am probably enjoying this conversation about sheep far too much.

I do suspect a lot of brexiteers long to go back to some imagined rural idle when women did dainty lady things with embroidery and men drank port and smoke cigars after dinner. Of course they forget that many of them would be stuck as peasants who would be lucky to live to the age of 30 in their one room hovel. Ah well.

Today's post

Hating the EU is, imo, displaced fury at the consequences of reckless British decisions coming home to roost.

I think that was BCF but I'm not sure ^^ This, a million times this

Re NZ, my family actually did emigrate there from Scotland in search of a better quality of life, but we emigrated back again (should that be "immigrated back again"? ) after only 2 years as we my parents found it too parochial and isolated . If they'd gone there straight from South Africa, they might have settled. But they'd got used to the cosmopolitan, outward looking, politically aware UK in the interim, so found NZ stultifying.

Shame that that has changed so much with the Brexit vote - although maybe not as much in Scotland as in England

The rest of the pages

Cheese (again) to the rescue.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42427812

Can't speak for anyone else, but it's now a point of issue to ensure we only buy non-UK cheeses from now on . And having just discovered the pepper-coated Danish cheese, it won't be such a hardship ....

Mr Gove suggested going to WTO rules was as likely as "a tsunami hitting the South West of England"

Hmmm like the assurances about a trade deal exactly the same as we had before being really easy?

Also why pick on the South West?

Quote is from LHs linked article!

Eventually we may have to go so far as removing everyone who can't prove lineage back to Anglo Saxon times,

Why only go back to the Anglo Saxon migration? That was recent enough. They came from the Germanic family anyway. Best to go back a bit further. Like those who came after the ice-age.

Speaking of the EU and Universities...

EU agree to 20 European Universities

I’m flicking through Good Housekeeping magazine and lo, there’s an article about the cost of Christmas dinner.

Having surveyed the major supermarkets, their conclusion is ”The year’s best meal will cost you 16% more than in 2016, even at the cheapest supermarket!”

Remoaning enemies of the people, talking Britain down, etc. If only they stuck to discussing how great a 50-something-ranked “self-reliant” economy based on agriculture would be, on the other hand...

Just to digress a little, a propos wool for knitting. Izzy Lane does cruelty free wool in Yorkshire. The sheep are rescued and sheared for their wool. It is not just a byproduct from the slaughter process. Wensleydale as well, which is great for people with allergies.

Gove is not a geographer. Does he not know about the
tsunami which might result from a volcano erupting in the Canaries?

Example of lost UK business

I was contacted a couple of weeks ago by a UK tech supplier (employs several hundred people) asking if we (large German firm) expected to have any projects for them in the near future.

I learned that we have been working together successfully for 20 years, on several high tech projects.
I had to say that we couldn't put them on our supplier list for any project until Brexit terms had been decided

That means no work in 2019, because projects starting then are already specified.
Of course we can't risk people unable to come to meetings, or confidential prototypes being inspected or held up at customs.

That UK supplier has invested many years and major resources in developing the German market - all gone atm.
Even if there is a "soft" Brexit, what will they do until then - 2020 at the earliest for work from us, or if DD keeps us guessing to the last moment, then a year after that, 2022?

They will probably lose key staff soon if there is less work / lower tech - some are E27 nationals including the senior project manager who contacted me -
and they'll probably permanently lose some customers:
we may never go back to them if the suppliers we use in the meantime are satisfactory - and within the EU, hence so much easier for our Purchase Dept.

Not my preference, but I'd have no problem if the Brexit plan was a scaled back Uk,

i.e. if Brexiters / Leavers would be happy with a UK in obscurity, dropping out of the UN Security Council, no more sacrificing British lives as the US poodle in the ME etc

However, most Brexiters seem motivated by nationalism, dreams of glory for "Britannia Unchained"
So that sounds he last thing they want.

Also, the Labour Leavers, JAMs and the very poorest who voted Leave in desperation to stop austerity

• they surely don't want the UK to become much poorer due to lost trade, with even less money left for the NHS, other public services, WTC ....

In fact, Legatum's plan allied with the UK & US hard capitalist right - is to loot a desperate UK, to privatise the remaining public services, especially the NHS, to slash the Welfare State until it resembles the pathetic levels of help in the US for the poor.