Westminstenders: Break Up or Make Up?

[RedToothBrush]

The next week or so appears to be yet another crunch point (not that any of these crunch points have actually resolved anything so far).

The EU is set to outline the plan for Ireland. Which everyone thought had already been outlined and agreed already. And it had been admitted was legally binding.

Except apparently we don't want to do that, and we are now crying about how the EU want to break up Britain (nothing to do with England wanting to leave the EU and Scotland and NI wanting to stay in it of course).

Jeremy Corbyn has now apparently decided that the customs union is a good idea. David Davis and Liam Fox have responded by saying that this would stop us making our own trade deals. Yes this has obviously stopped Turkey, and why aren't we doing as much trade with China etc as Germany anyway? A vote in the HoC looms before Easter. Will Tory rebels support.

Will Jeremy Corbyn bow to pressure over the single market too? The customs union alone does not stop the border issue in Ireland. Nor does it stop ridiculous queues at Dover. I'm not sure Corbyn is one for listening though. He's got a whiff of power and democracy and reality is just a hindrance to utopia.

As for the Great Repeal Bill. Word has it, its not going too clever in the HoL. The conservatives had something of a show of strength with an unusual number turning up for the debate. But few on the backbenches were willing to speak in favour of...

It all feels like we are making no progress at all. We are still bleating on about cherry picked deals as if this is a negotiation. Its not.

Also, the UK will still be on the hook - either in the (dog that didn't bark) divorce bill, or as a commitment to ongoing increased costs from EU member states. Especially (France, Ireland, Holland) the ones that have to really put the money into stopping the porcine airborne division flying in unnoticed.

Are Brexiters taking Trump's advice ?

"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with,
trade wars are good, and easy to win."

Easy-Peasy

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win.

We'll see ...

The "Great" was applied to Britain to distinguish it from "lesser" Britain, which was Brittany in France.

• like the Great Tit is the biggest of the tits.

No associate membership of EMA. It is a single market body under the jurisdiction of the ECJ and the Commission grants the marketing authorisation. It covers EEA (Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway) and the EU. No third countries.

If the EU were to make this new status, they would give no vote, take commission decision, and be subject to ECJ. Can't have outside SM body influencing anything. I cannot see it happening.

Ruth Davidson backs legal action against Scottish Brexit bill

Not quite as close to her chum Theresa as she once was ?
She's canny enough to see the way the wind is blowing and realises May will soon be blown away
Ruth is looking for a new "star" to hitch her wagon to.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/02/ruth-davidson-backs-legal-action-against-scottish-brexit-bill

Tory leader in Scotland says emergency legislation should be tested in supreme court if passed

The elephant in the room.

I’ve rethought how significant this “open relationship” malarky is. If it’s all unicorns and cake, it hardly matters what flavour it is, particularly when May’s set out visions before, how incoherent, only to u-turn when outbrayed by her hard Brexit colleagues.

Interesting about Davidson!

Sorry - I don't see Wee Ruthie as canny. I just see her as sleekit

More commentary on May's cake philosophy speech, this time from the ever insightful Ian Dunt

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/03/02/the-snowed-in-speech-may-pedals-furiously-down-a-dead-end

At the moment, Britain looks like a teenager telling his parents he is leaving the house, but still demanding they drive over and cook his meals.

Indeed.

When they say it is the will of the people to leave things never on the referendum ballot. Like the CU and the SM. Then it was also the will of the people the leave the EMA, the European Chemicals Agency and the EASA. People voted to leave them all, didn't they? Every sodding thing to do with the EU or associates. Someone should ask TM and the ultras why they want to go against the will of the people and have any aspiration to stay in these things.

Should Frank Field and IDS not come forward calling her out for 'ratting' on the will of the people. No bloody plane had better take off under EASA after Brexit. Or TM would be a traitor, eh Nadine. Or timely access to medicinal products. It would be a sellout to the will of the people. Or border counties have same relationships on the island of Ireland.

Barnier said 'we will not change who we are because you are leaving'.

I'm annoyed and tongue in cheek.

Watching the BBC news: I'd missed the bit where May finished off by saying, "We understand your principles"

The UK Government has demonstrated time and time again over the last 20 months that it doesn't have a clue about the EU's principles.

I think they are going to walk. They haven't honestly engaged with the process. If they do and renege on sovereign debt, it will be a trade war. It is amazing on how this coup happened so quickly. They are pirates.

Wrong end of the stick on Scottish Brexit Bill. Presiding Officer (Labour's Ken MacIntosh) questioning whether Scottish Parliament Bill is ultra vires given the A50 judgement. Lord Advocate says it has been drafted carefully (so as to have no actual effect ) to avoid this.

Ruth is very much on TM's side of this discussion.

It is amazing on how this coup happened so quickly. They are pirates
Yup. All in place ready to activate though, Thanks to DC and GO.

Maybe, Mother. I wouldn't trust them, though.

This article from Tony Connolly is quite good.

The widening gulf begins with the interpretation of the Good Friday Agreement, but old complexes have been reawakened. Throughout 2017 Dublin was urging London to spell out how it was going to protect the agreement and avoid a hard border, in ways that would not undermine the integrity of the single market. London insisted it was sincere, but was constrained by the belief that avoiding a border could only be realised in the future trade deal. .......

The option of alignment is the radioactive core of the breakdown. Dublin believes Michel Barnier’s negotiating mandate, granted by 27 EU leaders, provides for a generous interpretation of north-south co-operation. London believes that the interplay between north-south co-operation and the EU rule book is much more limited.

The EU’s mantra is that Brexit needs to be an “orderly withdrawal”. The scope for a disorderly withdrawal on the island of Ireland is ample, so the border, in Dublin’s view, is a withdrawal treaty imperative, not a free trade issue to be tackled later. The Irish government would prefer the border to be resolved through a free-trade agreement if possible, but believes a “backstop” must be in place in the meantime.

www.ft.com/content/59d23dcc-1c96-11e8-a748-5da7d696ccab

Sorry for venting so much. I don't understand the point about how the UK standards are proposed to be even higher than the EU and this will mean everything will be hunky dory. Won't the UK have to check everything coming from the EU as their standards will be definition will be lower and won't meet the amazingly higher British standards? So even more reason to check.

Had to suspend my belief for that one.

If you look at the whole picture. The ERG? Funding and affiliates. Active in other countries about EU. All the guys lingering with their poison for years. Most not renowned for their capability processes. Suddenly they seem to have taken over the gov't, the airwaves, the tone of the press. Cambridge Analytica and al. They will set the dogs on you if you even say you think it was an advisory referendum and not a statutory referendum. 'Ratting' on the will of the people. Traitor. Farage on QT saying how May might be suspect as she didn't answer how she would vote if there was another referendum.

None of it makes any sense
It's late, but worth reading anything about life in apartheid South Africa, Stalin's Russia, Chile under Pinochet.

Life goes on under totalitarianism. Cinemas are open, football happens, schools are schools. Same old stuff on BBC, apparently. Life goes on, just differently.

Yes it's a coup. Nice British coup, but a coup. mother I don't dare wear an EU badge now, I definitely won't in a year's time. Hopefully I won't be here.

One has no status as an EU resident Brit and one doesn't have a vote. Despite being British. People I went to school with who are Jamaican are being deported. Me and my kids have just lost our human rights, as of a few months ago.

The government is paying trolls to joke about people dying in the snow today.

It's a coup all right.

Europeans are calling it for what it is, but we aren't.

It is a coup.

Parliamentary scrutiny has been rejected, the judiciary demonised and undermined, the press bought with no accountability (goodbye levenson 2) and with the checks and balances we had now dismantled , there has been a naked power grab playing on populist fears.

A coup.

I don't like to say I told you so but I'm going to anyway...

Months ago I said this was not a coup d'etat but a coup de deceit.

A coup is a sudden action in politics, especially one resulting in a change of government illegally or by force.

This coup happened not by force but by deceit. We're voting to save the NHS, taking back sovereignty we had never lost, being over run by Turks who would never join the EU etc etc.

All the elements of a coup are there - really shocking.

Attempting to implement this whole process by triggering Articje 50 by a ministerial letter rather than a proper Parliamentary vote.

Actually appealing and fighting the court's decision that a proper parliamentary vote was needed.

Regular lies in speeches saying things like the country is united behind me.

Press failure to report, or minimilisation of, protests.

Demonising judges who were honourably and accurately applying the rule of law.

Attempting to use Henry VIII powers so chosen ministers can legislate without due debate , process and consensus.

Paying squillions of taxpayers money to buy the support of the DUP.

Reneging on international promises ( it's not all agreed until its agreed).

I never thought this could happen here. If it happened in Italy in the past we'd be looking all superior and saying how terrible and corrupt Berlusconi is.

Coup.