Westministenders: Groundhog Day

[RedToothBrush]

Groundhog day is 2nd Feb.

Its also today. And yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before.

We have all turned into Bill Murray.

That's Brexit in the UK.

The only progress seems to be linguistic gymnastics not policy.

No action has been implemented, we are still on words going nowhere.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Until at least 60% of people wish to overturn the referendum result, imo there would be severe consequences for democracy and assent to do so within the next 5 years at least.
So the electorate would have to experience the transition period plus full-on Brexit, under whatever terms are negotiated / not.

Too many people believe that unicorn cake is possible, because the EU need us more than we need them
Too few have the slightest idea about international trade and non-tariff barriers, which are often more serious than tariffs.

So few understand that the EU is required under WTO rules to treat the UK as a 3rd country, with non-tariff barriers
or would then demand that the EU dissolve its own Single Market, because England makes the rules.

btw, You're right about NI jobs,brain
I misread. In fact, the report was claiming that 70% of NI jobs are dependant on about annual £12 billion subsidy from mainland Britain, so they are not formally public service jobs.

It is a ridiculous subsidy, higher than the UK payment for 65 million Brits to belong to the EU.
All to support 1 million Unionists saying "No Surrender"

Without that £12 billion, I wonder if most Unionists would just emigrate to the mainland, so that Ireland could be reunited by consent of those remaining
… and May wouldn't have to worry about the NI border buggering up her chosen Brexit.

Anyone who's allergic to fact s can skip this.

For various reasons, I had to dig this up ... I was particularly struck by the UK judiciaries own views about the UK population ...

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2002/1630.html

73. The provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights are now becoming fairly familiar to non-specialist lawyers in this country, because Convention rights now perfuse so much of our law. The provisions of the EC Treaty, on the other hand, are much less well known to the non-specialist. Because of the wide interest this judgment is likely to engender, and because many English people have only a vague idea of what the internal market of the European Community entails, we will now set out the provisions of the EC Treaty which are of relevance in this case. We will give the articles of the Treaty their present numbering and add their original numbering in brackets:

I take it their Lordships were using "English" in the older sense of including all other countries in the United Kingdom, where any one might stand for all ... ?

Reading on, point 74 is a doozy:

74. It will at once be obvious that as soon as the internal market was established on 1st January 1993 no excise duties could be levied on the importation of goods from France to the United Kingdom any more than they could be levied on an internal frontier within the United Kingdom, such as the border between England and Scotland or the border between the counties of Kent and Surrey. Frontier checks may be permissible on other grounds, but not for excise purposes. The strains that have been evident at Dover arise directly from the fact that national legislation concerning excise duties within the member states has not been harmonised and there is still an enormous disparity between the level of excise duty charged on alcohol and tobacco in this country and that charged in other member states on the other side of the English Channel.

Incidentally, does anyone else find the "KFC restaurants close due to lack of chicken" to be as close to an advert for importing US chlorinated chicken as the BBC could get away with, without having to add "other sources of chlorinated chicken are available" ?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43110910

Fast-food chain KFC has had to shut down a number of outlets across the UK because they have run out of chicken.

(contd)

and again, is it just me that thinks the overall tone and wording of the "article" is deliberately inflammatory ? After all, an equally valid story would be "usual courier crapness causes some KFC outlets to remain closed" ?????

Closed due to lack of chicken that is cheap enough

So yes, smoothing the way for chlorine chicken.

Then the burger places will need the cheaper hormone-ridden beef …

"Taking back Control"
That's US Big Biz speaking, taking back control of its UK colony

More on that Royal Mail special issue ...

Now if I was Corbyn I would put it to a membership vote and then he can claim loudly to be responding to the 'will of the people' and challenge the Tories to do the same and allow a second referendum.

I don't disagree with the tactics of that, but I don't really want a second referendum.

It would be better if he put the policy change over Brexit - say EEA / EFTA - to the membership

I agree a 2nd referendum would be even more divisive, because it would only be held if opinion hasn't changed significantly

• if opinion were to move to 60:40 against Brexit, politicians could just change policy

Also, no time for a 2nd ref
If there is a major policy change, it needs to be very soon, to allow time for very different negotiations, even revoking A50 would need that

imo, a 2nd referendum is political cowardice:
politicians wanting cover - too chicken to propose policies that they consider necessary to avoid a disaster for the economy

imo, a 2nd referendum is political cowardice:
politicians wanting cover - too chicken to propose policies that they consider necessary to avoid a disaster for the economy

This is precisely it.

I wanted TM, when Cameron ran off resigned, to stand up and say 'New PM, new government, new approach to this referendum; we'll take the public's views/vote on board and investigate it.'

Obviously she's too cowardly to do that. One might have hoped that the opposition would show more grit.

But as Alistair Campbell said in his article - it wouldn't actually be a second referendum. It would be a brand new one with a different question - about whether or not to accept the deal we were given. And whilst the thought of it fills me with dread - we really should have a say on that!

Framing the referendum question would be hell.
Educating the public sufficiently about how trade works so they could make an informed decision would be worse hell

What does voting against a deal mean ?
Demanding the EU continue negotiations is not an option, because
the default for A50 is to crash out with no deal, i.e. just like Mogg & Redwood want
and we would need them to agree beforehand that they would chuck 18 months of Barnier's work in the bin

No.
Any further divisive referenda and the social cohesion in the Uk may shatter totally

It's time the politicians did their job.
Ideally, both main parties agree to work together on EEA / EFTA

If not, JC should put it now to the membership - who are overwhelmingly against a hard Brexit - and make this Labour policy, then fight for it as an almost united Opposition of all parties (minus Kate Hoey & about 8 others) in the HoC
Then let Parliament work as it should

I wanted TM, when Cameron ran off resigned, to stand up and say 'New PM, new government, new approach to this referendum; we'll take the public's views/vote on board and investigate it.'

I too think that would have been the sensible approach. Mind you, it might come to that. We are now little more than a year away from the leaving date and the concrete proposals are little more than ideas on the back of an envelope. I think the Government could collapse, and I would hope then that we eventually got a proper cross party coalition with the better brains, e.g. Grieve, Starmer, put to the task of trying to decide what the country wants and needs. I'd then like to see the current Government demoted to the back benches, where no doubt they would soon do a Cameron and throw in the towel.

The Withdrawal Bill is constitutionally unacceptable—and the Lords must act accordingly

This key piece of Brexit legislation would cut across the separation of powers. The Lords should seize their chance to change it

When introducing this Bill the Leader of the Lords, Natalie Evans, said that the government’s intention was “to have a functioning statute book on the day we leave.” The Constitution Committee agrees that this is essential but we do not think that the Bill as drafted can deliver this

www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/the-withdrawal-bill-is-constitutionally-unacceptable-and-the-lords-must-act-accordingly

The @50 challenge will reveal more, even if it 'fails' legally on the constitutional irregularities of the triggering of @50.

Anne Taylor, chair of HOL Constitution Committee, makes it clear that the repel bill is just that, constitutionally.

Of course, May should never have invoked A50 until

1. Impact assessments of all the possible Brexits: crashout / WTO / minimum FTA /… /EEA-EFTA
2. Using these, broad agreement of the Tory party - and especially the Cabinet - as to which Brexit

But she and her party wanted cake, not information or decisions
So she burned all our bridges with a very premature invocation of A50

btw, it was the one thing that was really worrying the EU: that the UK would keep them hanging years in limbo until the UK had everything lined up an planned
Once May invoked, she started the clock ticking and she binned the best lever the UK had to push the EU into concessions.

TBH I'm not sure im keen on another referendum.
Most people have no clue what the eu gives the uk. Nor will they be able to really grasp the consequences of whatever trade deal we will get.
No. What that referendum would be is just another validation/rejection of the government, a reaction to whatever is actually bothering people in their life. Just as the first referendum wasnt about the eu, the second wouldnt be either. And I would be very worried about it been taken over by some extremists views as people rebel against all the crap the tories have sent our way (increase in te divide between poor and rich, birth and south etc).

I think a second referendum would be just as flawed as the first considering the media seem unable to report properly on brexit.

I was watching daily politics earlier and the tory my was talking about the Guy Verhofstadt interview. He said this is why people left because they didn't want the EU telling us what to do. But they're not telling us what to do. They're telling us what trade deals they would consider. Whether to agree to this is up to us. Naturally this wasn't pointed out.

I agree I don't want a second referendum on anything (I'd quite like them to be banned - as I think they are in Germany?) and ideally the govt would just turn around and say 'we can't do this and it's not in your best interests so we're going to do the job you elected us to do and make the decision for you...it's not happening.'
But there is no chance of this government doing this and despite all the scandals and things that go wrong and their lack of a majority...they don't seem to be going to fall. So we will end up with whatever brexit they decide -which will probably be a crash out and utter disaster.
With that in mind I would much rather labour and the rest of the opposition parties started pushing for allowing the people a final say - with 'remain' as an option. No one could argue that a referendum on the final deal - over two years after the original referendum would be undemocratic and against 'the will of the people' - and this may be the only possible way of stopping all this.

If, however, parliament having a final, meaningful say with an option to remain was set in stone - and the opposition and the rebels all did their jobs properly...that would be much more preferable to me - although the leave voters may well feel incredibly betrayed.

Any further divisive referenda and the social cohesion in the Uk may shatter totally
The thing is - if parliament stop brexit - we're told there'd be riots.
If we crash out and there are food shortages - there will be riots
If we leave, even on reasonably alright terms - 16 million people will still be aggrieved and angry at the their loss of rights. These divisions will run deep and the scars could last generations. Especially as quality of life begins to noticeably worsen.
Fighting might start up in NI
Scotland will want another indie ref

I think social cohesion in the UK is a thing of the past, and there isn't much we can do to avert some kind of disaster somewhere along the line. It's just a case, now, of deciding what type of disaster to go for...
a referendum asking a different question will at least mean the Farage types can't claim they were betrayed or cheated or democracy wasn't upheld...
And then they will be free to continue to campaign to try brexiting again.

From the Irish Border Twitter account

twitter.com/BorderIrish/status/965514955784163329

To save my peoples from misery I am willing to sacrifice myself and relocate as a high security fence surrounding Daniel Hannan and Owen Patterson

No one could argue that a referendum on the final deal - over two years after the original referendum would be undemocratic and against 'the will of the people'

I agree with you that people shouldn't argue that but I have absolutely no doubt that any referendum, no matter what the consensus in parliament and among the political mainstream was, would be branded by Brexiteers as a "betrayal", an attempt to "undermine the will of the people", an EU conspiracy to pull us back from the sunlit uplands just within our grasp etc etc.

Meanwhile ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43116325

A meat supplier being investigated by the Food Standards Agency has fallen into administration with the loss of almost 270 jobs.

(contd)

Notice the narrative already being spun ...

The firm's directors called the decision to call in administrators "heartbreaking", but said the regulator's action had "created impossible trading conditions for us".

so the answer would have been to relax regulations, so you can carry on peddling shonky meat ?

Welcome to post-Brexit Britain.

Don’t want to derail, but could you share that NI report BigChoc? Is the 12billion referring to the money TM agreed for the supply and confidence deal or does it relate to NI receiving higher per head funding as outlined here: researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04033

I wanted TM, when Cameron ran off resigned, to stand up and say 'New PM, new government, new approach to this referendum; we'll take the public's views/vote on board and investigate it.'

Indeed. My suggestion at the time was for a cross-party commission to be set up, to understand what the options for Brexit were; to take expert witnesses on the implications and how to minimise the impacts; and to listen to what the public actually meant with the Leave vote. Then make recommendations for what it should lead to, rather than bleat "Brexit means Brexit"

I have absolutely no doubt that any referendum, no matter what the consensus in parliament and among the political mainstream was, would be branded by Brexiteers as a "betrayal", an attempt to "undermine the will of the people

You can't argue with stupid, and you can't argue with crazy - and sadly, the Brexiteers are both. But I think it is important that moderate leavers don't feel they have been betrayed, and I fear that another referendum would be the only way to achieve that and keep them moderate. I really don't want one...but I just don't see how this can be fixed. Much as I want parliament to just grow a pair and say 'no' -a) they're not doing it and b) it could push moderate leavers further into brexiteer territory.

I'm honestly beginning to think that some form of disaster is now an inevitability - and the best we can hope for is that we can engineer the disaster of our choosing and then manage and mitigate it as best as possible.