Westminstenders: Blue Passports

[RedToothBrush]

Yay for the blue passports.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all

May next year bring us £350 million for the NHS, cake, unicorns, financial passporting, access to the single market, Irish love and of course control to the people.

(Apologies been up to my eyeballs. Normal service will resume after Christmas).

EVEL per se doesn't stop a Scot bring a leader of a UK party. However, unless they are an MP for an English constituency, it is now highly unlikely in practice. How can they promote legislation on a strategy on say, education or the NHS, to name two biggies (indeed, any of the devolved areas) and then not be allowed to vote on it ?

It is one of the highly foreseeable unintended consequences of EVEL

Elena Really sorry to read about your experience.

And the thread articulating the experiences of racism/xenophobia was utterly saddening.

double With general trends , there are always significant minorities who are different

The Tory party is an uncomfortable mix of social liberals (Cameron, Osbourne) and social conservatives (Moggy, May)
who in e.g. Germany would be 2 separate parties, FDP and CDU / CSU respectively
The Tories only picked Cameron in desperation after 3 straight GE losses

Many analyses quoted on these threads, including Lord Ashcroft's huge study, identify Brexiters as more likely to hold authoritarian views e.g. corporal punishment in schools, death penalty and other old-fashioned attitudes

These voters are from both old Tory and old Labour, so the old left / right split on economic grounds is now sometimes replaced by "social / identity" issues;
this is why some lower income voters have switched to Tory and some higher income voters have switched to Labour

Clearly there are Brexiters / Tories who are against both caning and hanging

Also, I don't know if you are a paid-up conservative party member, who tend to have different demographics and social attitudes to Tory voters and even Tory MPs

I come from a family of staunch conservatives, who were paid-up members, so I have observed a - very elderly - local party at close hand in social gatherings
e.g. the last time I attended with my late mum: calling homosexuals "satanic" and everyone piling in to outdo each other in agreement.

I'm not sure what warrants the view that Davidson is a liberal conservative. Just because she's gay? She's shown no signs of reigning in her extreme right tories in Scotland, see Douglas Ross for Moray and some other right nasties who were supposed to be educated and disciplined but who have been let off. She's pretty good at showing herself as a good lass but she's no liberal. Invisible when it comes to difficult questions and she keeps supporting bigots in her own party.

She seems to be a social liberal and to try to soften some hard edges of Tory economic policy

How much of this is principle and how much is merely to gain votes in Scotland - where rightwing Toryism still seems toxic - we will only know if she takes up an English seat in the 2020s and makes her bid for leadership

Very astute BigChoc

As a left wing, Indy supporting Scot I couldn't possibly comment

Interesting article on brexits impact on party politics.

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/after-brexit-its-no-longer-about-left-and-right-its-now-social-liberals-vs-social-conservatives

Revealed, how a THIRD of Tory donations come from a tiny group of rich men who enjoy lavish dinners with Theresa May

Exclusive: Research reveals just how much Britain’s party of government depends on a band of 64 rich donors for survival

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-how-third-tory-donations-11798246.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Is he the leader Mother! OMG what an idiot!
He needs to something constructive about the problem.

Sorry - should read - needs to do something

mother Kermit thinks about the plight of others too much to be a Tory. Miss Piggy would be more apt.

I bet Harry and Meghan are furious about that - they seem a nice kind couple, definitely not the social cleansing type

Nigel Farage
@Nigel_Farage
I'm meeting EU chief negotiator @MichelBarnier on Monday and I want to involve the 17.4m. Send me your questions below using #AskBarnier

Stefaan De Rynck
@StefaanDeRynck
Tone it down @Nigel_Farage you are hardly the first to represent leave voters to @MichelBarnier who meets @GOVUK all the time and met @CommonsEUexit @LordsEUCom with plenty of #AskBarnier already. Looking forward to your views on phase 2.

[stefaan is barnier’s senior advisor]

I feel sorry for Barnier having to spend time in a room with Farage.

Tone it down

You know, the StefaanDeRynk tweet is funny but it's also an example of the EU negotiators' policy of trying to go over the head of the media in this country - cutting through the hideous level of right-wing populism - and trying to speak directly, against the misrepresentation.

Farage's twitter question is a small example of 'fake news': it's intended to imply that the Leavers are not being listened to by 'the elites'. And a lot of our mainstream media are still too supine/too committed to right-wing populism to call that out.

Farage's #AskBarnier stunt has had predictable responses

Le Saboteur #FBPE @combatmaquis
@MichelBarnier Can you confirm @Nigel_Farage and @ukip have paid back the £500,000 they stole from @EUparliament #AskBarnier

Nick Dowling @dowlingual
13h13 hours ago
Hi Nige. #AskBarnier who gave The Democratic Unionist party £282,000 to spend on a pro-Brexit advert in a newspaper that is not published in Northern Ireland.

Jo Richards 🇬🇧 🇪🇺#FBPE @JoRichardsKent
11h11 hours ago
How did Nigel Farage get away with telling so many lies about the EU? If the UK breaks up or crashes as a result of Nigel Farage should he be held responsible?

Steve Bullock @GuitarMoog
13h13 hours ago
Does Mr. Barnier consider this poster [Breaking Point} to be fundamentally racist? Is Mr. Barnier aware that UK has full control over it's own asylum policies while a member of the EU? (Hint, he is)

Stevie(VictimofaPoliticalCrime) #fbpe @heeney77
13h13 hours ago
#AskBarnier
Will Nigel serve his fraud conviction in Brussels or Brixton?

Jim Cognito @JimCognito2016
13h13 hours ago
Do you think MEPs should have a minimum attendance requirement in European Parliament to stop absolute charlatans like members of @UKIP who have atrocious attendance records but still receive full salaries? #AskBarnier

Why on earth is a current LBC radio presenter ( not James O'Brien) who was a former leader of a troublesome and ultimately unsuccessful right wing political party continuously given so much publicity and apparent credibility? It's a mystery.
He has meetings with Trump and now is meeting Barnier ??? He is constantly in the press- it's weird . Other ex politicians MEPs etc aren't given so much attention after they have stepped down.

Contrast Natalie Bennet, the former leader of the Green Party, a well established minor party, which has actually delivered both MPs and MEPs, has international recognition and has shown more longevity and stability.

How does Farage even get an audience with Barnier? He's a nobody (Nige, not Michel).

Is he actually 'meeting' him in the sense of, they'll both be in a debating chamber at 11 on Monday and Barnier might at some point ask Nige to pass the biscuits?

Delurking briefly to say what a well-deserved award for Redtoothbrush!

I have read every single posting on these threads since June 24 '16. It really is the most informative discussion on the cons and con of Brexit.

Thanks to all for keeping hope alive! (not so much that Brexit will somehow be dropped, although I think that's still a small possibility, but more the knowing that I am not alone and there's a large, and intelligent, number of others who share my concerns.

Everyone I know IRL thinks Brexit will be a disaster.

Please don't stop!

Not sure if this link posted yesterday as have people staying and am a bit distracted.

"Based on the minimum salaries stipulated for the roles, the department will need to spend at least £2.4m on its new batch of recruits.
In September last year, it was revealed the 20 per cent of David Davis’ civil servants had left in the prior 14 months, raising questions about staff satisfaction."

The thing is you sort of get anaesthetised to the expenditure, the misplaced focus and the absurdity. Just imagine if a department like this, only better, had been set up jointly with the NHS to address issues there.

http://www.cityam.com/278256/tough-times-brexit-department-needs-64-new-recruits

How come 54% isn't a majority, now ?

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/05/ukgov_admits_pr0n_age_checks_could_harm_small_isps_and_encourage_risky_online_behaviour/

(notice that 54% of respondents were not in favour)

I didn't wonder why he strongly defended Young - I assumed it was because it was cronyism and the both of them being twats but

Adam Bienkov
@AdamBienkov
In case you were wondering why Boris Johnson so strongly defended Toby Young this week, here's why:

Boris's articles about 'hot totty' and 'tank-topped bumboys' unearthed.

uk.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-women-gay-people-sexism-bumboys-totty-toby-young-2018-1