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Brexit

Westministenders: Groundhog Day

994 replies

RedToothBrush · 14/02/2018 16:20

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.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
47
DrivenToDespair · 15/02/2018 11:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 15/02/2018 11:32

Link for those interested in supporting it:

www.crowdjustice.com/case/strengthening/

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2018 11:32

DG Noticeable how fearful young voters are and how hopeful the 65+ are

  • that would be the big chunk of boomers who own their own homes and a big pension, not the 65+ surviving on a tiny pension.

Looks very different if you are worried that your job will disappear vs being on a good pension vs a pension where you keep choosing heat or eat or medicines.

DGRossetti · 15/02/2018 11:51

35% still feeling hope about Brexit.

You'll get to a residual rump that would be hopeful about anything. Which I suspect is the sum of ignorance, obstinance, religious conviction, and faulty assessment.

In the course of my employment, I've met with lots of polling agencies. It's worth noting that all of them massage figures before "analysing" them - discarding "faulty" responses.

Cailleach1 · 15/02/2018 11:55

Stephen Donnelly @DonnellyStephen

Collapse of Stormont talks is the sixth item on BBC's news at ten...appearing just before an item on the clothes worn by Team GB in the skeleton competition at the Winter Olympics. Good indication of London-based priorities.

Michael M. @vivamjm
DUP never wanted the GFA. Being Tory kingmakers has changed the dynamics considerably...bet DUP can't believe their luck after the last Stormont election results. Tories have much to answer for

“We can not and will not be held to ransom” says @DUPleader.

Oh, the irony.

DGRossetti · 15/02/2018 11:57

I wonder if there's something about the fact that people talking and people voting aren't necessarily the same ?

For example, people who can remember 1973/75, and the UKs entry to the EU have some fundamental belief that it's still just a trading bloc, and genuinely can't see why simply leaving should have any serious ramifications. However, they aren't the squeaky wheel .. which is the people we did hear talking about ever-closer-union.

If that makes sense (I think I've confused myself).

My DW met a lady not long after the referendum who had no idea how being a member of the EU allowed movement, study and work. No idea. But she voted remain on her grandsons suggestion.

I think a bigger problem than Brexiters not having the first clue what Leave means is the fact they they had no idea what they are leaving in the first place. Which is still the case.

Lico · 15/02/2018 13:24

Thanks Red and all regular posters.
Interesting article re trains!

<a class="break-all" href="https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/opinion/britain-transportation-privatization.html?referer=apple.news/AQMgUOSSVRWyX_-tPVqjT0A" rel="nofollow" target="blank">mobile.nytimes.com/2018/02/15/opinion/britain-transportation-privatization.html?referer=apple.news/AQMgUOSSVRWyX-tPVqjT0A

OnTheDarkSideOfTheSpoon · 15/02/2018 16:55

Off topic but

BBC News England
@BBCEngland
Former BBC Look North presenter Christa Ackroyd is facing a tax bill of up to £420,000 after losing a legal battle with HM Revenue & Customs

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-43074584

Jo Maugham QC
@JolyonMaugham
A whole string of cases involving broadcasters using personal service companies coming up. And the prospect of some huge tax bills: Farage, Dale, Hartley-Brewer, Livingstone and many others.

They are widely used for tax avoidance. They were sometimes insisted on by 'employers' for their own tax benefit. They are all different - but all carry some risk.

DGRossetti · 15/02/2018 17:06

They are widely used for tax avoidance. They were sometimes insisted on by 'employers' for their own tax benefit. They are all different - but all carry some risk.

As far as I know, it's a simple duck test, isn't it ? Similar that did for uber ...

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2018 18:18

Alarming Conversation with a British diplomat – is this the line the government’s peddling?

https://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/alarming-conversation/

At a diplomatic reception in the capital of a large developing Commonwealth country, a conversation between a senior UK diplomat and 3 UK parliamentarians from different parties took place along the following lines:

Q: So Britain would say “don’t worry about child labour, safety, rights at work, we’ll turn a blind eye to such matters?

Diplomat: We’d say it’s up to them to choose which standards they want to apply.
We won’t restrict their exports because of their choices. Angry

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2018 18:29

(paywall)) David Aaronovitch: Can any of us believe a word Johnson says?
< no >

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/can-any-of-us-believe-a-word-boris-says-tr32j8z5x

Ever since the referendum they didn’t expect to win, leaders of the pro-Brexit forces in Britain have alternated between triumphalism and surliness.

Insecure in victory, they have blamed everyone else when things have not gone their way:
judges, civil servants, the BBC, teachers, the EU, big business and Anna Soubry.

Lord (Digby) Jones tweeted:
“Attention all Remoaners! Stop doing Barnier’s work for him!
This undermining of our country’s negotiating with the EU HAS to stop.
We’ll end up with a lousy deal & you will be to blame.” Confused
………
In the summer of 2016, three weeks after the referendum and two days before joining the cabinet to oversee our exit from the EU,
Mr Davis wrote that he “would expect the new prime minister, on September 9, 2016, to immediately trigger a large round of global trade deals
(and) that the negotiation phase of most of them would be concluded within 12 to 24 months.” 🤦🏻‍♀️

When he was reminded of this by the committee’s chairman Hilary Benn,
Mr Davis replied that he’d said it before he’d become a minister;
that was then and this is now and then guffawed.

What a hoot.
I got everything wrong, so they put me in charge. 🤦🏻‍♀️

That’s what a clued-up Remainer sees,
and sees too the Brexit impact assessments that were both voluminous and nonexistent Hmm
the Treasury regional assessments that forecast a loss of GDP under almost every kind of Brexit,
and the Irish border fiasco that’s only temporarily frozen by an impossible fudge.

They see other government business grinding to a halt because of the dominance of Brexit,
and the cabinet divided on what it wants more than 18 months after the referendum.

And when they raise any of this,
it’s all been Mogg and mockery
and a vox pop from a pub, where someone says that we ought to be out by now.

The biggest reason that many Remainers cannot be reconciled, Boris, is that they don’t believe a word you say.

IhatePipArcher · 15/02/2018 18:36

🇬🇧

mathanxiety · 15/02/2018 18:48

But there is an answer to this supply problem: national service. All students in tertiary education could be required to register for work in seasonal agriculture. Universities should organise their term times and vacations in accordance with the needs of the nearest agricultural areas.

They do this in North Korea.

The writer, Aileen Hammond goes on -
Universities may try to object because they are important international organisations etc. But they should be told that cooperation is their contribution to the common good.
Another contribution to the common good might have been to vote Remain, and even at this stage, to campaign for another referendum, but no, let's just contemplate something completely bonkers instead...

'Important international organisations' smacks of anti-intellectualism plus of course anti-internationalism (citizens of nowhere).

There is also the interesting notion that there is someone 'telling' organisations how to conduct themselves. If this Hammond woman is real, she has clearly never understood the point of representative democracy.

I am torn between believing there really is an Aileen Hammond out there typing scathingly about the pampered students and the owners of holiday homes, and duty, and wondering if some insightful genius out there has absolutely nailed the mindset of the average Tory party member.

Desperatelyseekingsun · 15/02/2018 18:56

So is the plan we find money to pay for university education again? Because I'm not getting why students should work in fields for degrees and also pay for them. Also wondering if the popularity of degrees like archaeology were you have to do a different type of field work during the summer would rocket. I cannot believe Aileen Hammond is a real person.
On a side note I got a nice email reply to a note I sent Dominic Grieve some months ago. That poor bloke must have a massive email inbox.

BigChocFrenzy · 15/02/2018 19:03

Currently no national service in Germany and no uni fees either
It doesn't have to be a race to the bottom, but maybe it's to punish the young for being young / snowflakes Hmm

mathanxiety · 15/02/2018 19:04

'''No Surrender is the clarion call of the Unionists since the days of Lord Randolph Churchill. This is dog whistling at its finest. This latest piece of verbal excrement comes hot on the heels of the equation of expert opinion on Brexit with astrology by Ian Paisley Jr.

www.irishnews.com/news/2018/02/08/news/brexit-dup-s-ian-paisley-and-sammy-wilson-no-surrender-call-criticised-1251464/
Earlier, East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson said the "gloves are off" in Brexit negotiations.

"The blackmailing burghers from Brussels and the cheap political opportunists in Dublin must meet a tough UK government response," he wrote on Twitter.

"In these negotiations, if the gloves are off, it is time we went into the fray with a no surrender attitude."

In a Northern Ireland context, "no surrender" echoes the firebrand style of former DUP leader and founder the Rev Ian Paisley, but the term has also been associated loyalist paramilitaries, and more recently rhetoric during loyalist flag protests.

The SDLP's Claire Hanna, the party's Brexit spokesperson, hit out at the DUP MPs' remarks.

"The unionist mantra of 'no surrender' belongs in the past. For a party that professes to want to restore power-sharing here, this language is sending the opposite signal," she said.

The South Belfast MLA added: "People here are deeply frustrated and worried about their futures, particularly the business community yet the DUP at every opportunity fail to squeeze any clarity out of the British government.

"The truth is that is because the DUP have no idea how to stop a hard border in Ireland – so they rely on slogans and soundbites to cover for their utter failure to stand up for the wishes and the interests of the people in the north."

Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry said: "Sadly, the extreme rhetoric from ideological Brexiteers appears to be worsening as the hard reality of Brexit becomes ever clearer.

"The short-sighted Tories and DUP MPs are presiding over the erosion of our economy and the cohesion of our society."

Meanwhile, unionists have rejected the idea of people in Northern Ireland still being able to vote in European Parliament elections after Brexit.

Sinn Féin and SDLP have both said they will seek to ensure Irish citizens living in the north will continue to be represented in the European Parliament.

Yesterday Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson urged the south's government to push for northern representation.

However, DUP MEP Diane Dodds said: "That people living in Northern Ireland have a right to Irish citizenship and therefore EU citizenship is effectively a statement of fact, but to infer that this confers voting rights is a political stunt, with no basis in law or reality."

Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson claimed the Republic being given extra European Parliament seats to represent Northern Ireland would "violate the Belfast Agreement and the principle of consent".

woman11017 · 15/02/2018 19:41

Silence on NI on BBC is deafening, math

Andrew Adonis has won a modest victory today on a BBC website headline. Protest has changed BBC headline from 'UK shackled to EU corpse' to "EU joins global growth bandwagon" Shock

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43055890

< Discussion of this?

Seems so relevant to what looked like scare mongering in this
The first half has happened, the second half conjecture.
J Patrick so sorry folks who don't agree with him and byline.

www.byline.com/column/67/article/2040

^The Scenario:
Politics within an established, liberal democracy lurch suddenly to a conservative extreme and changes in the nation's direction occur at an alarming pace

Within three years the political and social landscape is polarised and the checks and balances fail inside and outside of government. A leadership figure emerges who captures the more aggressive side of public sentiment and increasingly intimidating and violent acts suppress opposition, resulting in a shell democracy under which ever more draconian laws and controls and introduced to cement the power grab and crush any resistance

A new system of wealth management and taxation is combined with restrictions on rights, liberties, and the freedom of the press, producing a regime under which compliance with the despotic state is the only option for everyday survival

An assortment of financially motivated cartels co-operate with the leadership to maintain certain benefits in kind while creating a landscape which is detrimental to the general public

Standards of living are forcibly reduced in order to maintain control of population levels and eliminate dissent opportunities, and the education system is altered to maintain easier psychological control of citizens by limiting critical thought. Patriotism becomes compulsory and eugenics are introduced to maintain a certain standard of genes within the national pool, deemed acceptable by the leadership

Propaganda replaces the news diet of the population and the country is maintained in a constant state of preparedness for war, including the introduction of rationing and hyper-manufacturing, with periodic military incursions on foreign soil taking place using conscripted troops

Alarmingly, a number of less than credible Conservative MPs have mysteriously found themselves embroiled in allegedly violent protest events (Rees-Mogg and Davies), while another has publicly shown a purported threatening letter sent to a Brexit supporting constituent (Goldsmith). The events themselves do not stand up to any scrutiny and appear staged or suspicious, notably all of them claiming violence or aggression by parties wishing to remain in the EU. Right-wing news and disinformation outlets have been having a field day

Disturbingly, genuine threats of violence and intimidation from the leader of Britain First, in support of Rees-Mogg, have been ignored, along with almost two years of extensively recorded and reported hate crime committed by racists and bigots. It has also transpired that right-wing groups have been training for civil war in secret groups

In addition, a number of potential electoral offences on the Leave side remain under investigation and we haven't really started on the Russia issue

Finally, the extreme-right of the Conservative party are promoting active engagement in tours of Universities

It is the 1st of April 2019, Britain has officially left the EU with no trade deal and no transition arrangement

The Irish border has been thrown into chaos and the military have been deployed. Lorries have turned the countryside leading to Dover into a carpark and all flights are grounded. Exporters are already collapsing under the paperwork burdens of WTO rules and cannot organise logistics

2.8 million people are being made unemployed and 8% of GDP has disappeared in a puff of smoke already. Jam production has fallen off a cliff

Over 2,000 people arrested during an anti-Trump protest have been moved to a specially created encampment due to a lack of space in prisons and courts being unable to hear the cases – among them are fifty members of parliament. UN representatives have been ejected from the country following an incident relating to 120,000 unlawful deaths arising from cuts to the welfare system

The number of homeless people has exploded following the collapse of the Universal Credit System and more camps are being opened by the military reserve forces to house a mixture of single people and young families - all of whom will work on farms in exchange for their new lodgings

Food imports ground to a halt this morning and panic buying has left supermarkets empty with no signs of resupply, fuel supplies are also dwindling

And what we predicted on these threads over a year ago.

Westministenders: Groundhog Day
woman11017 · 15/02/2018 19:49

Sorry that was a bit apocalyptic. Grin

This might be useful; interesting to and fro between two men on the twitters today: Adonis and Nick Robinson.

Growing discomfort over BBC bias so this might be worth taking part in.

@judi_sutherland
Bothered by BBC Brexit Bias? Join me in #Todaywatch. All you have to do: listen to @BBCR4Today any time bt 6 & 9 am. When you hear clear bias in favour of Brexit, note what's said, the approx time & which presenter. Tweet it out with hashtag #Todaywatch. I'll collate examples.

lalalonglegs · 15/02/2018 20:11

I like the sound of #Todaywatch Smile.

The Labour Party receives 16000 emails in five days urging it to consult on Brexit Smile.

Labour has set up eight policy commissions since last year’s general election, to consult members and develop policy, but none focus on Brexit. The party has said Brexit is covered under the international policy commission, involving Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, but that commission is not at the moment accepting submissions on Brexit. A leaked draft of the commission’s agenda for the meeting this weekend, seen by the Guardian, shows members will be asked for views on development goals, not on Brexit.

mrsreynolds · 15/02/2018 20:17

woman
Yep....
😔

mathanxiety · 15/02/2018 20:21

Politics within an established, liberal democracy lurch suddenly to a conservative extreme and changes in the nation's direction occur at an alarming pace

All of this was under the surface. My London-based uncle many years ago - during the 80s - told me it is very true that England is a place where on the surface all is calm and serene like ducks sitting on a pond, while underneath it is all furious, seething action.

I am convinced that 'Aileen Hammond' expresses the preference of many for very simple answers to complex questions and who feel very comfortable with the idea of some strongman telling off the uppity universities and other intellectual bastions, and organising daily life, with no irksome debate either in the media or in Parliament. I think there is a mindset that would welcome rationing and electricity shortages and the national anthem at midnight on the BBC. These people would never consider themselves fascists, but that is what they are.

prettybird · 15/02/2018 20:43

I had noticed the BBC headline 'UK shackled to EU corpse' yesterday; made a point of reading the article because it didn't seem to reflect what I know of the UK and EU economies Confused - and found that the headline was a gross mis-representation of the content (and the really sad thing is that I wasn't surprised at the BBC Sad). The new headline "EU joins global growth bandwagon" is much more accurate - but how many people have already had their prejudices confirmed been influenced by the original title Angry

mrsreynolds · 15/02/2018 21:44

I can't really verbalize this well so forgive me....but....
That's part of why I'm so upset/angry/horrified by brexit and the things that have happened since 2016;
The hard Brexit attitude/feeling/belief has obv been around for a long time
How didn't I see it?
How did we get here?
I feel stupid 😔

RedToothBrush · 15/02/2018 21:46

Britain Elects @ BritainElects

On bringing back compulsory military service for young people:

Support: 48%
Oppose: 36%

--

18-24 yr olds:
Support: 10%
Oppose: 62%

65+ yr olds:
Support: 74%
Oppose: 18%

via @YouGov, 15 Feb

OP posts:
TheElementsSong · 15/02/2018 21:57

65+ yr olds:
Support: 74%
Oppose: 18%

ShockAngry Nice that, once again, people who won't be affected are eager to inflict something on people who will be affected.