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).

Hester their nationalism doesn't seem to extend to paying national taxes.

Leave was partly funded by dregs of apartheid. FOM less passports are just apartheid 'passes'.

Apartheid pass laws are a DUP wet dream.

Exactly Woman - I am proud of what Merkel did. She did the humane, the right thing, despite the right wing in her own country and elsewhere

And I fail to see how "not enforcing Germany's and other internal EU countries' " borders would have stopped the refugees (let me repeat, refugees ) fleeing war torn countries. So what more should Greece, Hungary, Italy etc do? Let them drown? Land mine the border zone? You also need to know that the EU has far fewer refugees than the countries in the Middle East which are currently trying to cope with literally millions of refugees in camps

But I would be accused of "Remainer" generalisation if I were to suggest that that was typical of some Leavers xenophobic attitude and lack of compassion.

Disclaimer: I know that Leavers like Corcory and Howabout don't think like that.

Just out of interest Gin how many of those millions of refugees has the UK accepted ?

What was the alternative for Greece and Italy if other EU countries refused to acknowledge their burden ?

This wonderful government. The ones that overturned the Dubs amendment so we wouldn't take in refugee children. As if ignoring refugees wasn't bad enough, but children FFS.

The empathy lobotomy programme worked well

Scotland has already taken in the 2,000 Syrian refugees it agreed to - 3 years ahead of schedule, and has said it would take in more if the Home Office were prepared to accept more.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-42385589

Just looking back at some old apartheid stuff. Bit shocking, really, the parallels:
The way the #3million have been treated is straight out of apartheid handbook.
The way we with our right less FOM less 'passports' will be treated ?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pass_laws

What if the US had never started its Wars for Oil and its poodle UK hadn't joined in ...

What if the US / UK and Russia hadn't torn Syria apart, all because of Russia's major military base there ....

The US, UK and Russia are responsible for there being millions of refugees fleeing chaos & terror,
responsible for creating a power vacuum in the whole region, which grew the IS terrorists

Was the EU supposed to join in the slaughter of brown people and machine gun refugees ?

Germany still remembers Communist border guards shooting to kill innocent Germans fleeing the former DDR.
Merkel certainly does - she grew up in the DDR

I am so angry about the passport thing. I will lose my citizenship of Europe. My automatic right to travel to, live and work in 27 countries. In exchange I get a 'blue' passport. I never asked for this. I will never forgive this theft of my rights.

The Brexiteers had better make this work. The burden to improve things must be hanging very heavy on their shoulders. (The ones who give a toss about anyone else, anyway.) I'd have thought some would be having doubts by now.

Grumpy^ Leaver Richard North continually warns of the coming Brexit diaster, because of the Ultras cake delusion^ - not because of the EU side

http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86713
…
At the end of March 2019, when expectations of disaster loom, little will happen.
We will continue trading with the EU on terms very much as before.
There is even the possibly that the EU will somehow "magic" the third country deals, so that we can keep trade with the rest of the world on a fairly even keep.

A rational prime minister would make the best use of that time.

We would at least have the opportunity to sort out customs systems and the infrastructure needed to manage trade with the EU.
We might also do what we can to encourage the EU and its Member States to develop their own systems and their own very substantial infrastructure needed to deal with the UK.

As it stands, though, we have a delusional prime minister
who believes that we can successfully negotiate a trade deal with the EU which far exceeds in scope anything which has been agreed to date
– on a par with our current position within the Single Market.
…
Buoyed by this false logic, the prime minister would see absolutely no need to make any preparations for our coming "third country" status,
nor does it give our negotiating team any scope for making sensible arrangements with the EU that will enable us to make the best out of a bad situation.

The point here is that if the prime minister expects the EU to make offer anything beyond a basic free trade agreement,
she is going to be seriously disappointed.
… her delusion does not give EU negotiators any firm basis on which to forge a workable agreement.

We can see the time draining away as the UK sticks to its unrealistic demands,
leaving us with the worst of all possible worlds – an exit without a deal.
…
the extra time will simply give businesses more time to restructure,
and to transfer vulnerable operations to new bases in the territories of EU Member States

However, for as long as the media narrative supports the empty claim that we have moved from phase one to phase two of the negotiations,
and that this somehow represents a "victory" for Theresa May,

nothing of this will impinge on the consciousness of the public – still less the media or the political establishment.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/12/20/brexit-all-that-s-left-for-may-to-get-through-is-the-unyield
…
The Brexit Cabinet committee and full Cabinet meeting …persisted in the delusion that we could indeed agree a bespoke deal somewhere between Norway and Canada - the so-called 'Canada plus-plus-plus'.

Ministers apparently resolved to aim for a 'significantly more ambitious deal' than the Canadian deal, like children demanding their favourite meal and sticking their fingers in their ears while being categorically told it is not on the menu.
It seems they also called for 'ambitious' trade deals with other countries.

Such soundbites may bludgeon voters into submission, but they will leave the EU - and reality - unmoved.
The only thing the government will find between Norway and Canada is the wreck of the Titanic.

Lots of leavers (Andrew Neil seems to be a prominent voice in this) making much of the fact that the passports won’t cost 500 million to change and they were due for a redesign anyway and look at all the fake news. Apparently this is the remainers’ version of the £350 million to nhs bus

Scotland has already taken in the 2,000 Syrian refugees it agreed to - 3 years ahead of schedule, and has said it would take in more if the Home Office were prepared to accept more.

Why don't we live in a country where we are proud of being a part of the EU, and proud of helping desperate refugees.

Why don't we live in a country where the views of the 16 million people who saw the merits of retaining EU membership are taken into account in sone way.

Why do we live in a country where people care about colour of passports and skin so much?

(And also having tick box system to choose the colour of your passport would have been easy and a symbolic gesture that the gov was trying to bridge the many wider chasms in the country.)

www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees

This is why we let them in. I think some people have forgotten. Also Merkel was not against taking in refugees as many of them were highly skilled and highly educated and likely to contribute to society. Not to mention the fact that many of them want to return to rebuild Syria after the war. Germany has long felt an obligation to help refugees considering their history.

If it was your family, your children being bombed, starved what would you do? I think the right wing media and farage have dehumanized people in the most disgusting way.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/200099

Petition to have the individual cost of brexit outlined on our tax statements.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/207247

And another to Investigate whether David Davis lied to Parliament about Impact Assessments.

.

(paywall) It’s forever jam tomorrow for leavers, as May cooks up her softest Brexit

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/its-forever-jam-tomorrow-for-leavers-as-may-cooks-up-her-softest-brexit-7zqk7htms

…The EU refuses to adopt May’s euphemism of “implementation period”.

Whatever it’s called, the EU ruled that it will be negotiated next,^^
between now and the next formal summit on March 22, 2018.

Only once this is agreed will the EU move on to what it calls “the framework for the future relationship”
and British politicians rather more optimistically term “trade talks”.

After May went home, the other leaders considered the UK proposal for “a transition period of around two years”.
Their guidelines dictate that it will take place under their rules.

“All existing union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory, judiciary and enforcement instruments and structures will also apply, including the competence of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

As the UK will continue to participate in the customs union and the single market (with all four freedoms) during the transition,
it will have to continue to comply with EU trade policy.”

Britain will have to obey their rules and pay for them,
but without a seat at the table where they are made.

< great negotiating by DD and May >

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/22/diana-abbott-asks-for-explanation-over-denied-access-to-yarls-wood

Diane Abbott has written to the home secretary, Amber Rudd,
to ask why she has been refused permission to visit the controversial Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre despite at least a dozen requests over more than a year.
…
Yarl’s Wood, where foreign nationals are detained before being deported,
faced criticism last month after the chief inspector of prisons, Peter Clarke,
said he had found
increasing numbers of women held there despite evidence they were victims of torture, rape and trafficking
< think of them detained there, traumatised but not in a safe place, while the rest of us enjoy Christmas >

Clarke said he was concerned to find that
the Home Office had refused to accept that rape came within the legal definition of torture

^…The EU refuses to adopt May’s euphemism of “implementation period”.

Whatever it’s called, the EU ruled that it will be negotiated next,
between now and the next formal summit on March 22, 2018.^

This sounds like a concession from the EU? Last reports were Barnier pointing out no transition certainty till October 2018 on the basis "nothing is agreed till everything is agreed".

Switched on to BBC's Adam Fleming talking about "observer status" on CFP during transition which again looks like tacit acceptance that UK will be half out during transition / implementation. (Didn't hear full story so may have missed a bit?)

*Scotland has already taken in the 2,000 Syrian refugees it agreed to - 3 years ahead of schedule, and has said it would take in more if the Home Office were prepared to accept more.

Why don't we live in a country where we are proud of being a part of the EU, and proud of helping desperate refugees.*

There is a difference between the UK's managed programme of bringing refugee families direct from camps and the German policy which provoked an uncontrolled stampede and trafficking via Libya of not just refugees but a large number of economic migrants who have ended up trapped. Germany is belatedly seeking to send half their "refugees" back in return for accepting the ones they should have taken in the first place - relying on Turkey and Southern Europe to do the vetting and humanitarian clean up.

The issue is very far from the black and white portrayal.

www.dw.com/en/two-years-since-germany-opened-its-borders-to-refugees-a-chronology/a-40327634

Brexit: Liam Fox’s department signs deal to keep trade talks secret

Letters reveal that the UK and US have agreed to hold information "in confidence" for four years
unearthed.greenpeace.org/2017/12/20/brexit-trade-deal-liam-fox-us-uk/

Merry Christmas to us all!

I cannot stand it to read about refugees as an 'uncontrolled stampede'. We're not talking about a herd of buffaloes here. People, setting sail on little boats with their children. Drowning. And paying people smugglers a lot of money for the privilege.

rhu stampede is completely dehumanising , but then that's how some people view others. As less than human, and not worthwhile.