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Brexit

Westministenders: KAAAAABBBOOOOOOOOMMMMM

992 replies

RedToothBrush · 30/01/2018 00:18

'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.

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Thread gallery
67
RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 09:24

Germany reported to have reached a coalition deal.

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BigChocFrenzy · 07/02/2018 09:27

Under WTO rules, the EU is required to treat the UK like any other 3rd country
or treat every other 3rd country in the world as it does the UK

  • unless we have an FTA or better arrangement with the EU, or can show we are in the process of negotiating one (WTO allows flexibility in that case) and this govt has been too incompetent to even decide what it possible, let alone start negotiating for it.

imo, the problem is that nationalist Brexiters never accept that the UK should be treated on the same terms as anyone else
It's fine & natural for your own country to be the most important to you
but
it's daft to assume other countries will feel the same.

Brexiters haven't realised that the UK is no longer sufficiently powerful to have the privileges it used to ( and not just from EU)

"When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression"

BigChocFrenzy · 07/02/2018 09:29

daft to assume other countries will feel the same about the UK, I mean

RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 09:33

David Davies MP @DavidTCDavies
While doing an interview today on College Green I was surrounded by pro EU protestors. I was physically threatened & verbally abused by one male who barred my way. It is unacceptable bullying & it must stop. I had my camera out to film what was happening for my own protection.

And one of several videos by pro EU protestors refuting this version of events. twitter.com/dunc_saboteur/status/960667463632506880

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BigChocFrenzy · 07/02/2018 09:40

Germany:
Any coalition deal with the SPD requires approval by postal ballot of their 464,000 members
So, confirmation or rejection will take probably at least another couple of weeks.

A coalition that took that long to put together won't have the spare time or political will to stick its neck out for the UK.
The Brexiters assumption that Germany will ensure a good deal always was fantasy though.

DGRossetti · 07/02/2018 09:45

Funny how the oppressor uses the language of the oppressed ...

DGRossetti · 07/02/2018 09:48

I wonder what EU members constitutions require them to hold a referendum on the final Brexit deal, and how their UK citizens might vote in that ?

RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 10:21

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Intriguing number of non-rebel Tory MPs speaking approvingly of Efta option at @S_Hammond Westminster Hall debate
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/2d01d04c-d97b-436d-a4cf-d42b4503ddee

Stephen Doughty @SDoughtyMP (Labour)
Just speaking in an important debate in Westminster Hall on EEA/EFTA - showing there are many options on way forward for country - not just the extreme hard #Brexit the PM is following - seems that a lot of Tory backbenchers agree! @Open_Britain

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OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 07/02/2018 10:32

Anna Soubry's received death threats but this is just dandy

Andrew Pierce‏
@toryboypierce
ANDREW PIERCE on Tory traitor Anna Soubry dailym.ai/2El25D1 via @MailOnline

LondonMum8 · 07/02/2018 10:50

In other news, JRM announced creation of a new organization called BSS - Brexit Security Service (or Brexit Schutzstaffel as JRM prefers to privately call it). The stated purpose of the organization is to actively promote Brexit and its values across Britain while maintaining security of pro-Brexit activists. Meanwhile Theresa May convened a war cabinet. #BrexitForPeaceFreedomDemocracyAndProsperityHeHe

RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 10:51

Faisal Islam‏ @faisalislam
Well well well. DUP MPs leader Nigel Dodds turns up at @S_Hammond EFTA debate, asks him to clarify whether he wants EFTA alone or EFTA-EEA.

Buy shares in EFTA.... @S_Hammond

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DGRossetti · 07/02/2018 11:00

In other news, JRM announced creation of a new organization called BSS - Brexit Security Service (or Brexit Schutzstaffel as JRM prefers to privately call it).

Probably need to be backed by a secret state police ? Sort of Sestapo ?

SusanWalker · 07/02/2018 11:10

Was that piece on Anna Soubry written by Rita Skeeter? I like the inference that having a drink makes her an unstable alcoholic. Mind you the DM hates a woman who speaks her mind.

RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 11:27

Chuka Umunna @ChukaUmunna
@S_Hammond announces at the end of the #WestminsterHall debate that he is tabling EFTA/EEA (Single Market) amendments to the Trade and Customs Bills

Remember Steven Hammond is a Tory. This Trade and Customs Bill just got interesting.

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RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 11:30

Peston on FB

There is one big thing on the agenda of the Brexit war cabinet today and tomorrow: it is to give legal form to Schrodinger's border.
"Schrodinger's border" is a senior Tory's name for what the government has to create between Northern Ireland and the Republic: a border that both exists and doesn't exist at the same time.
Or to put it another way, there has to be enough of a border so that after we leave the EU, the rest of the EU isn't fearful that goods failing to meet their standards leak from the province into the EU single market.
They don't want US chlorinated chicken polluting EU coq au vin, for example, which might happen if we succeed in doing a trade deal with Trump's America and there aren't border checks.
But the border can't be so real that it stimulates the kind of smuggling and crime which in the past has funded terrorism.
So the border somehow has to exist and not exist.
Now the reason Theresa May and her top ministers have to agree a text that would enshrine Schrodinger's border into law is that without it the rest of the EU says we won't get that 21-month transition to full Brexit - which so many businesses say they desperately need, if they are have to have the faintest chance of adjusting to the realities of Brexit.
If at this point you think that Schrodinger's border is a logical impossibility and that therefore there won't be a transition, and we'll be crashing out of the EU on 29 March next year, well there is something to that fear.
But the government in December agreed, in a non-legally-binding text, that if Schrodinger's border can't be created through a technological miracle, there would be a regulatory solution - viz that we would commit through "high level alignment" between our regulations and the EU's that we wouldn't sell shoddy goods and products to the EU.
But turning that statement of intent into a binding promise brings huge risks for Theresa May - because it would be seen as enshrining forever the possibility that our business laws and regulations could be determined in Brussels, and many who voted for Brexit would see that as a betrayal.
Jacob Rees-Mogg would spontaneously combust at the very idea.
So please pity Theresa May and her top ministers, because in the next 24 hours they need to come up with the words for a Schrodinger law - a text relating to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic that is seen by the rest of the EU as legally binding and is viewed by Jacob Rees-Mogg as a worthless piece of paper.
And by the way, if you think that's a challenge, it is as nothing to the task for May of formulating what our future trade relationship with the EU should be, such that EU government heads regard her position a clear enough to publish guidelines in March for meaningful negotiations on a trade deal, while being sufficiently vague to prevent a lethal schism in her cabinet and party.
What she needs is Schrodinger's trade plan, a proposal that that is simultaneously seen by the rest of the EU as guaranteeing that all their rules and regulations are being followed by British exporters of goods and services, so that those exporters have lowest cost access to the EU single market, while Brexit-supporting Tory ministers and MPs see it as repatriating to the UK the ability to set our own rules and regulations.
"Ce n'est pas possible!" you might be tempted to say - echoing what I've already heard from Mrs May's Brussels interlocutors.
So if you fear that when it comes to politics, Schrodinger's concept is a figment with a whiff of bad eggs, and that Theresa May is chugging inexorably towards the mother of all political crises, you might hear the great thinker's elusive cat miaowing her agreement.

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RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 11:33

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
Is all well with Babcock, the outsourcer which looks after our nuclear and military equipment and trains personnel

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/49abeab2-0b91-11e8-9ed2-93cf9d74a2fe
No one say 'Another Carillon'.

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LondonMum8 · 07/02/2018 11:33

Probably need to be backed by a secret state police ?

Absolutely @DGRossetti, just like in the good olden days when nationalists were frolicking in this part of the world.

#BrexitSunlitUplandsLikeIts1930sAgain

prettybird · 07/02/2018 11:43

The only bit in Peston's piece is his exhortation to "pity Theresa May and her top leaders" Hmm

They got us into this mess. It's their job to sort it. You know, possibly, just possibly, show some leadership and put the good of the country , the whole country first and not just the 37% (and declining) Angry

SusanWalker · 07/02/2018 11:51

Greg Hands International trade minister stuttering through questions about our negotiating position on DP. Our country is fucked.

nogizuzuvu · 07/02/2018 12:04

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

thecatfromjapan · 07/02/2018 12:04

I feel sad to think how many fewer people will read that Peston analysis than voted in the Referendum. Sad

RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 12:38

order-order.com/2018/02/07/ministerial-suicide-watch-update/
Ministerial Suicide Watch (Update)

In which we find that Ben Wallace and Tobias Elwood and Dominic Raab are all not about to resign in a huff about Brexit. But we do find out the source of the story is Gavin Williamson.

No one likes him do they?

Who is the most unpopular Tory MP? Crowded field this one.

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RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 12:44

PMQs

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
Theresa May declines to rule out US-UK trade deal will give US healthcare firms access to the NHS

(Did she not notice the TTIP row?)

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RedToothBrush · 07/02/2018 12:46

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Hilary Benn asks about how to reconcile customs union exit with maintenance of n Ireland border - PM says we have to leave the customs union to do trade deals

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prettybird · 07/02/2018 12:52

She was specifically asked if the NHS was for sale. All she said in her answer was that we haven't yet started our negotiations with the USA.

So the answer that she inadvertently gave was, "Yes" Angry