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.

To cheer us up: Just occasionally, dirty tricks rebound on the dirty trickster

Comeuppance !
All this aggro with the Met goes back to Green's dirty tricks - skirting the edges of criminality - against Labour

(For those who have forgotten the background from 2006)
Article just BEFORE Green's resignation

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/01/damian-green-decade-long-feud-met-officer-bob-quick

The decade-long feud between Damian Green and Bob Quick, now coming to a head with a Cabinet Office investigation into Green,

can be traced back to a day in 2006 when a young civil servant working in Jacqui Smith’s Home Office was allegedly told by the now first secretary of state [Green, now resigned] to get “as much dirt on the Labour party, the Labour government as possible”.

Christopher Galley had approached Green’s then boss, David Davis, who was the shadow home secretary, < another slippery toad >
saying he was a committed Conservative and was willing to leak material.

Davis introduced Galley, who was then working in immigration, to Green, who was the Tory immigration spokesman
…
Over the course of the next two years Galley got a job in the home secretary’s private office
and passed at least 31 separate documents, some classified restricted,
from the heart of Smith’s department including from her private office’s inbox and private outer office safe.
…
Green made maximum use of the documents to secure damaging headlines in the Daily Mail, Sunday Telegraph and other papers.
The sustained and high-profile campaign went far beyond the normal trade in leaks between whistleblowing civil servants and opposition MPs – with claims that some of the leaks involved national security.

The Cabinet Office called in Scotland Yard to investigate.
Quick, an assistant commissioner who as head of the SO15 unit covered politically sensitive specialist operations, was instructed to take on the job.

< so, that's how Green's "extreme" porn stash was uncovered, which eventually has caused his downfall - fully deserved ! - that's why we should cheer >

That's a shocking abuse of his position.

Is that the real story pushing the 'resignation'?

How the fuck is David Davis still in place?

And - last in the line of aphoristic exclamations of shock - this has to be the most shit, immoral-bordering-on-criminal government ever, surely?

Catfromjapan- such an interesting post, and it makes me feel so down to agree with you, but I do.

I had wondered if some Westministenders might be too young to remember the background to his wank stash ever being discovered .
A British version of Tricky Dicky Nixon ?

No, I don't think this is the real reason, unless more evidence has come to light about the dirty tricks that tip more into criminality

It does reveal what a sleaze Green is, though
I didn't want people feeling sorry for someone being caught with wank fodder.

It certainly feels that way cat, though I don’t know enough about the machinations of other governments to have full confidence in that statement (have never followed politics quite as closely before).

Re:paradise papers. The guardian and the bbc have been threatened with legal action (but are fighting back)

Guardian to fight legal action over Paradise Papers

Offshore firm at heart of story, Appleby, is seeking damages and has demanded Guardian and BBC hand over documents

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/18/guardian-bbc-legal-action-paradise-papers

Paradise Papers legal action against BBC and Guardian condemned

Key media partners in investigation warn Appleby case could endanger sources and threaten freedom of expression in UK

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/19/paradise-papers-legal-action-against-bbc-and-guardian-condemned?__twitter_impression=true

We've been robbed of BOGOF though

DD's promises are never reliable

Cameron fled, not just to avoid dealing with the mess
I'm not sure that DC is not a useful idiot in this bit of the story. Funders of Leave and the decades long extremist agitation against the EU knew exactly what they were paying for when they bought DC.
David Cameron given special dispensation to broker talks between Britain and China in new role leading £750m investment fund
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/16/david-cameron-set-750m-uk-china-investment-fund/

The guardian and the bbc have been threatened with legal action
A bit like russia, then. Although their journalists, especially women journalists endure worse than legal action.

Another possible reason for Green's departure ? Briefing against Kate Maltby ?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/17/tory-activist-in-damian-green-case-had-violent-threats-after-mail-article

Kate Maltby, the Conservative activist who has made allegations of sexual harassmentt* against the first secretary of state, Damian Green, received a series of “violent threats” after the Daily Mail published an article calling her “one very pushy lady”

With a Cabinet Office inquiry into Green’s case understood to be examining whether he played a role in briefing the newspaper against Maltby,
her allies say the critical piece coincided with a flurry of threats against her, some of which she is in the process of reporting to police.

I think the Green situation might cause trouble for the Govt.
They are saying he's been sacked for dishonesty not porn.
So what do they now do about DD and the impact papers? Or Boris Johnson? Or any of the other lying toerag in cabinet?

Lying for personal reasons is different to lying for party political reasons

Or of course "lying for the country" - but these ministers lie TO the country - Barnier knows the facts, so lying to fool him would be hopeless

But facts are boring and you have to read them.

Much easier just to hate 'other`'
and demonise those boring people on the centre and left who keep raising these awkward facts (Big Choc Frenzy)

....like Vivienne yesterday, who "hated" the EU for following due process

I love catfromjapan's post. That really resonated on so many () levels.

thecatfromjapan Wed 20-Dec-17 12:10:18
You are on fire

On the BBC website this morning an announcement that May is doing a deal on security and defence with fascist Poland. Well, they didn't call it fascist. Just after the EU announced it was going to invoke article 7 iirc, 'the nuclear option' because of the polish law reforms. TM is speaking of shared values with Poland, just as Liam Fox did with Duterte.

(and yes Cat, great post!)

The thing for me about the Green porn stash is the hypocrisy of the papers.

About 5 years or so ago there was a massive ho hah in the papers about the idea that local government workers were all just sitting at there desks all day on Facebook. This involved loads of FOI requests about how much time people at work spend on social media and lots of demands that these sites should be blocked because we weren't paid to piss about on Facebook. This resulted in quite a few local government organisations actually blocking access to these sites for people meaning they couldn't even catch up with messages on their lunch break. Where I worked they started monitoring how long people were on social media with the idea that if you spent too long on you would get a warning. Though thankfully our management only did this for show to make the media go away. They recognised that for a lot of people working in web, communications, front line services etc, social media was essential to their job and that people using it in their unpaid lunch break was perfectly fine. Basically a whole lot of bother, time and expense went into mollifying the righteous anger of newspapers at the completely fictional idea that we were all wasting tax payers money looking at inappropriate stuff on the internet.

And yet these very same papers are now defending Green who is being paid with exactly the same taxpayers money, claiming that he should be allowed to spend his time downloading porn to his work laptop. If he had worked in the planning department of a local council there would have been demands for heads on spikes and the complete shutdown of the internet.

@thecatfromjapan. I won't quibble with your analysis but we need a different term 'radical' has come to imply 'wrongness' and 'threat' - I can't say they were wrong to use the weapon Cameron gave them.
I certainly believe exiting the eu is a mistake but negating the favour given to city in UK policy making will be a necessary part of the journey to a fairer country.
The real balance sheet for the city has never been prepared, over 400bn (now extended to 600+) quantitative easing, the 500bn bank
bailout, short termism and the non-payment of tax by corporate and individual are significant debits.

I hadn’t seen that rhubarbella. That’s awful

The City don't pay enough tax
However, what they do pay is 11-12% of tax receipts
and we are where we are, not where we would ideally like to be

Losing a signifiant part of that tax would devastate the economy and public services
Plus all the effects of losing the support jobs and all the service jobs that they support

Damage to the City would bring hardship, particularly to those most vulnerable, including those in the North who hate the City

The govt sems to have decided that the Uk shares values with fascists and dictators, with mass murderers & torturers around the world

Those are not my values

Delurking. Catfromjapan your post is spot on I think. Depressing but spot on.

Thanks everyone I'm reading most days and will go back to lurking again

I'm very depressed about Poland - and our government's dealings.

These are not my values indeed.

This might be a good moment to say thank you to everyone who posts on these threads.

You are light in dark times. Thank you for your time, thought, words and companionship.

Sacked for 'misleading and inaccurate' statements. What about DD (contradictory statements about impact statements; saying he'll resign if DG sacked); BJ (false and endangering statement about Nazanin); LF (Brexit deal will be easiest in human history)?
And many others no doubt.

Daily Mail headline 'What a sad way to go'. Oh bring out the violins.

Lack of honour and honesty is shocking in Govt.

Artist Taxi Driver makes this point well on twitter...Fallon, Patel and Green are still MPs and have a decent salary. Ordinary people are sacked and made homeless for less misdemeanours. Thousands of children homeless. But the Govt... 'They only cry for their own.'

mobile.twitter.com/chunkymark/status/943732057250910208

What could the Daily Mail have put?

"May sacks w*nker."

This would lead to people scratching their heads and asking, which one?

It's a satisfying display of karma - they were leaking against Labour who called in the Police, who May has already upset, and eventually, through Green's own stupidity by not keeping his hands to himself, it's caught him out.

Events, dear boy, events, as McMillan isn't supposed to have said, but it's a good quote.

Agreed Peregrina. Karma and events can be a bit slow though, can't they? I'm growing impatient!

This made me laugh - ideas of where these political characters should really be:

mobile.twitter.com/RJonesUX/status/943075652529516544