Westministenders: KAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMMM

[RedToothBrush]

'Quick' Recap.

Once upon a time, despite warnings to the contrary after previously attempting to recreate a speech from the 1930s, Theresa May triggered a50.

A series of events, which included a disastrous unnecessary General Election and losing seats, ensured that we have Brexit by Timetable in which every piece of goodwill was burnt up a long time ago, and the EU decided to go "see ya then".

Only this General Election, made this politically impossible as well as practically impossible, given how this would destroy our economy.

So May did the only thing she could and agreed to lock us in with sufficient progress deal, which is legally binding, if no deal is agreed. Thus giving us in essence a choice between staying in the Single Market and Customs Union due to NI or breaking an international agreement which would destroy all our international credibility and trust.

Except none of the Brexiteers really grasped what was happening. Until this week.

In the meantime we still have had spectacles of Nadine Dorries asking on the infamous WhatsApp Group why we can't stay in the CU. Any Davis saying that he has now apparently 'changed his mind' on the matter. Not that Labour are any better, with Corbyn saying we can't stay in the Single Market and leave the EU. Except of course, Norway is in the Single Market...

Fast forward through a sex scandal that's swept through Westminster, installing self appointing the vampiric Gavin Williamson as Defence Secretary, we eventually ended up with a reshuffle which was possibly as pointless and as successful as the General Election. And Gavin Williamson is caught up in a sex scandal.

May has managed to drag the Great Repel Bill through the Commons, without breaking the party, but with much back room dealing and compromise with Remainers. Hailed as something of a victory by Brexiteers, this rather is a fools paradise. At what price to their ideological purity did this come? Is there much Brexit left? And there is much more to come in the Lords, with the LDs committed to working with Labour on securing at least 10 amendments. The two parties have a majority in the Lords if they work together.

Away from parliament we have had the glorious demise of Toby Young, who is forever to be remembered for eugenics.

As it has become apparent that we are increasingly looking like we are on track for BINO, the EU have told us, that we should have sucked up a compromise proposal earlier and now the Norway Option is off the table as we fucked that up by taking too long to disagree amongst ourselves and being arses to EU citz. I paraphrase slightly here, but that's about he long and short of it. Instead we get the pleasure of 21 months of the EU interfering in our law without representation. And we are already locked into this. Now Leavers can moan about this, and shock horror, actually be correct about it too! Transition will be up to 31st Dec 2020 at the latest. Which realistically is still too soon, not that any lying arsed Brexiteer is willing to admit to this. Yet.

The only way to get out of this proposal for better terms? Either beg the EU for something there is no way they will give us or revoke / extend a50.

The fall out from May's reshuffle is still going on in slow motion. Rees-Mogg has got a bigger platform to spout shit he knows nothing about, admit that he has never changed a nappy nor wiped his own arse, thinks women should give birth to football teams, and how he has never visited IKEA and has no plans to do so. Johnson has tried to build bridges. And effed that one up again. Gove has made us all be obsessed by plastic straws and turn into environmental maniacs because no other minister is good at press releases and media stunts. Arch Remainac Liddington, got Deputy PM and took over Brexshit even more from DExEU. Hunt is in no way after becoming PM and Greening is really pissed and when straight back to lead from the Naughty Step.

To cut the long story short: they all hate May and think she's shit

There are thought to be nearly 48 letters to trigger a leadership election in Graham Brady's hands. But not quite. And its not about the letters its about needing 159 MPs to no confidence her... but that is starting to sound more and more plausible in the face of Brexshit hitting the fan.

We now have a leaked impact assessment that we really were not supposed to see which is slightly less worse than Project Fear. But not by much. Its supposed to be by DExEU. Its been suggested that its actually by alt-DExEU aka the Cabinet Department (Robbins and Liddington).

Anyway, nothing is decided. May might zombie on forever. She won't, she's in a crowded field of Tories with stakes. But that sub-committee meeting on Wed 7th Feb is crunch time for something or someone.

Tick tock, tick tock, went the Brexit Clock.

Oh yeah and there's going to be a trade war between the US and EU. And there's some stuff about a ex-Belize diplomat. And Trump's coming to visit us.

@pickardje
Iain Duncan Smith: "Almost every single forecast from the government.....has been completely wrong....we should take this with a pinch of salt." #today
IDS is correct: sometimes government economic predictions are too pessimistic...or too optimistic...

I assume this also follows predictions such as successful brexit, no deal better than a bad deal, brexit windfall, etc etc

Thanks again. Not much to contribute but reading avidly.

Just seen that Theresa May is off to China.

Brave Lady. Some of use can remember November 1989, when a certain Thatcher, M was in Paris ....

Incidentally, good to hear Lord Judge giving Jon Humphries a hard time on R4 this morning. You could almost hear the disgust in JH voice that he had to listen to an "expert".

Just seen that Theresa May is off to China.

Brave Lady. Some of use can remember November 1989, when a certain Thatcher, M was in Paris ...

Tee hee.

Morning... time for a newsdump

Peston on FB

As the leak to Buzzfeed shows, the government’s own new economic analysis shows a loss of income to the UK of between 2% and 8% over 15 years depending on whether we secure a trading arrangement with the UK as costless and frictionless as Norway’s (the smaller loss), or as tariff-heavy as America’s (and see below for my earlier post on what this analysis is and why it matters).

In response the government has said that its own economists, led for this exercise by Suzannah Storey of the department for exiting the EU, did not model the economic impact of the kind of bespoke, unique trading deal we seek with the EU - and therefore it would be wrong to conclude that all versions of Brexit would make the UK poorer.

Now for the avoidance of doubt, this is probably the most risible statement I have ever heard from any government spokesman.

It would have been reasonable - if embarrassing - to dismiss the analysis as just one assessment among many, although this would have been to denigrate an already demoralised civil service, and would have made it odd that the most senior ministers are being briefed on it to inform the great debate on what kind of Brexit they want.

It would also have been to admit that ministers are flying blind into Brexit, which would not be reassuring.

But if the prime minister thinks the analysis is robust and credible, she cannot argue that it is remotely conceivable that any form of Brexit will not impoverish us.

Unless that is she actually believes - which would be tragic in its naïveté - that the EU will agree trading and customs arrangements with the UK as good as those we have today, despite the total unanimity of all EU members that the full benefits of EU membership can only accrue to EU members.

The point of this economic analysis is to remind us of two big things, which I have been banging on about since well before the great referendum vote for Brexit.

First, there is an economic price for “taking back control”. It’s not a devastatingly huge price. It may be worth paying to secure the putative benefits of enhanced national sovereignty. But let’s not wilfully pretend there is no economic cost to Brexit.

Second, what this new official analysis confirms - in fact the only important point it really makes - is that that the economic costs of leaving are directly correlated with how much control we take back.

The more of an increase we desire in national sovereignty, the more that we want our laws and rules for business and commerce to diverge from the EU, the poorer we will be.

If I wanted to use the Brexiteers’ incendiary language, I would say the choice is between being a richer vassal state or a poorer independent country.

No wonder Theresa May has been dreading the moment when she and her ministers actually have to decide what kind of future trading relationship they want with the EU. And no wonder, as I said yesterday, that Angela Merkel has been poking fun at her inability to say what she wants

Dh is gobsmacked that a report like this is only supposed to exist in a paper copy and is being shown to cabinet ministers on a 1:1 basis.

He's complaining, "Whither now, democracy?"

Of course, I knew about these shenanigans yesterday, thanks to Westministenders

On a serious note, I see that the usually suspects like IDS are complaining that the report doesn't include the Government's preferred option, a bespoke deal

That would be the bespoke deal that the EU has said since day one that the UK can't get because it can't cherry pick

That would be the bespoke deal that the EU has pointed out that if they were to "give in" and allow the UK to cherry pick, then it might as well disband

That would be the bespoke deal that if the UK were to get, then Canada, Japan (and many others who have multilateral deals) would jump on to get the same deal under their MFN clauses - as if that weren't sufficient incentive for the EU to stand by its principles

I don't think so.

Place Mat King

One misapprehension I’ve noticed a lot of Leavers have is that they believe all Remain voters give a free pass to the EU and ignore its flaws.

A lot of Leavers struggled with complexity, really.

Sam Coates Times @ samcoatestimes
The governemnt spin this morning is that this leaked analysis of brexit outcomes does not look at the Government’s preferred outcome

That’s because they haven’t decided what their preferred outcome is.

Ian Dunt @ iandunt
Everything will be OK if we just believe harder. Our faith will build the customs infrastructure
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/01/29/need-brexit-cabinet-not-one-dreadfulremainers-dooming-us-failure/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_tw
We need a Brexit Cabinet, not this one with Remainers dooming us to failure

Anna Soubry Mp @ anna_soubry
“Nobody knows where this will end up” says IDS on #Brexit @BBCr4today #godhelpus

Peter Foster @ pmdfoster
Iain Duncan Smith shorter: its your “facts” v my “facts” and I don’t care.

But the reality is that U.K. decision to erect barriers (extent tbc) to market that takes 43% of exports must have costs.

So Brexiteers need to make case for upside - argue it, & not just assert.

Hammond is right. People didn’t vote to be poorer.

And based on these assessments - and plenty of others - this government is in a strange/unique position.

It is spending millions of pounds and civil service manhours to do something it knows will damage the economy. /2

But economy isn’t everything.

There are other issues - rebalancing the economy, dealing with immigration and identity questions, reclaiming sovereignty, taking a long term bet that the EU will fail as a construct.

Arguments need to be made. Denial is not enough.

Joe Goodall @ commonjoe
IDS and his ilk often state something like this. Took me about 5 mins to get this data from the IMF and plot it. Seems to confirm most forecasts about impact on the UK economy to me.

Prettybird funny you should say all that re: bespoke trade deal.

David Allen Green @ davidallengreen
Disappointing to hear BBC give credibility to the "bespoke trade deal" option as a sort of balance to the leaked negative Brexit analysis.

This is because (a) there is no UK proposal and (b) no evidence EU would accept it.

May as well posit a fairy tale.

Every indication is that EU will accept either a Norway or a Canada deal, and nothing more bespoke than that.

And telling UK has not even modelled this supposed bespoke option.

A red herring.

There is no time for a bespoke deal, even with 21month transition period.

Bbc are remarkably poor in this. This is not being biased to acknowledge this. This is cold hard reality.

Which in 2018 is no longer allowed to be stated by media establishments and we wonder how we got here.

Royal Mail seems to be behind Brexit now.

Rachel Sylvester of the Times writes that a second Brexit poll looks ever more likely.

What once seemed politically out of the question - only a couple of weeks ago commentators were rubbishing the idea, iirc - is now moving into the realms of the possible. Nobody wants a re-run of the divisive and depressing 2016 referendum, but momentum is slowly but surely gathering behind the idea of giving the people the chance to approve or reject the prime minister’s deal.

...Today, Lord Adonis, the Labour peer who recently resigned as head of the government’s infrastructure commission over Brexit, will table a motion in the House of Lords regretting that there is no provision in the EU withdrawal bill “for the opinion of the people to be secured” on the eventual settlement, putting the question of a second referendum firmly on the political agenda. Although his aim is not to secure a change in the law at this stage, a cross-party alliance of peers including Lord Hain, the former Labour Northern Ireland secretary, and Lord Newby, the leader of the Lib Dems in the Lords, will speak in favour of the motion, indicating growing support for the idea.

An amendment formally requiring a fresh referendum is then likely to be tabled to a later bill implementing the withdrawal agreement, on which parliament has been promised a “meaningful vote”. Lord Adonis has already consulted lawyers about the wording and been advised that it would be possible to insert a clause into the legislation, which is expected to be tabled in the autumn.

Some ACO related news:

Update on Urgent Legal Action for Our NHS #JR4NHS

Dearest Round 1 and 2 supporters,

We are delighted to say that the court has granted permission for the judicial review to proceed to a full hearing "as soon as possible" after 14 March 2018.

After last week's concession of a national 12-week public consultation in the spring, Mr Justice Walker has decided that arguments on the need for primary legislation and on transparency “merit a full hearing”. This is fantastic news.

We now expect the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Jeremy Hunt, not to lay the regulations to facilitate ACOs that he was planning to do in February. He repeatedly refused last week to delay the regulations when questioned by Sarah Wollaston MP, chair of the Health Select Committee.

Disappointingly, the judge also decided not to cap the costs that the claimants might have to pay the government and NHS England if the judicial review is lost. In view of the large amounts already spent and claimed by the government and NHS England in opposing the case every inch of the way, we are giving careful consideration to next steps on this at the moment.

A report is now on the front page of The Independent:

www.independent.co.uk/

Peter

Thanks for the new thread!

Disappointingly, the judge also decided not to cap the costs that the claimants might have to pay

this is what crowdfunding is for. Who knows, maybe we could get Putin to throw a few thousand in, just to mess with the UK ?

Probably should have attached a link to where people can contribute if they want though not sure Putin will see it here :

www.crowdjustice.com/case/jr4nhs-round2/

Placematting, thanks as always Red

Thanks for the new thread and excellent summary RTB!

JRM isn't happy ...

From Scientists for EU FB page:

Rees-Mogg has just said of the transition deal: ”We would take for the first time since 1066 laws imposed on us by a foreign power without having any say over it ourselves.”

1- Acknowledges UK always had say within EU.
2- solution is extension rather than transition.

Point 1: So, to be clear... JRM acknowledges that this is the “first time since 1066” we’d have any laws passed over UK in which we didn’t have a say. That means all laws passed via UK nationally or via EU agreement have had UK input. That buries the old “the EU is a dictator” line. It was always a fraudulent claim.

Point 2: If this scenario vexes JRM so, there’s a clear solution... just extend EU membership for 2 years. Firstly, Article 50 allows it. Secondly, it buys time to do deals (like the ‘transition’). But thirdly, it retains UK say in Council & Parliament for that period. So it maintains our power and influence. Why won’t JRM argue for that?

(I wouldn't hold your breath for the BBC to put those points to JRM, by the way ...)

Peter Foster @ pmdfoster
One more thought on the #Brexit Economy analysis leaked to Buzzfeed.

This was NOT from Treasury Or Team Hammond.

This was DexEU analysis. A department captained by @DavidDavisMP - an arch Brexiteer.

It comes from one of their own. As a warning to their own: tread softly.

Interesting for a telegraph journalist to stress in this way, when others are doing exactly the opposite.

order-order.com/2018/01/30/tory-voters-strongly-back-may-moment/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
TORY VOTERS STRONGLY BACK MAY FOR THE MOMENT

69%!!!!

I think "Tory voters" are being held hostage, really. After all, quote a few "tory voters" are in reality "anti Corbyn/Labour" voters.

A lot of Tory voters also backed Mrs Thatcher, but she had to go too ...