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.

I'm so pissed it's costing me not much shy of £500 to ensure the kids and I keep our FOM

There will be many who would love to be able to just buy their DCs FOM, but can't.

It will only be when UK citizens are turned down for jobs, it'll start to sink in. Of course it will be the wicked EUs fault.

Although in some ways I would like a second referendum I can't see any way of policing it against both outside interference and yet more lies from our own politicians, media etc.

On Any Questions last week, in answer to the question which EU country would you like to live in if not UK, a brexiteer said Ireland, as there was a big appetite for Irexit and he would help campaign for it. Which as far as I know is not true and went uncontested.

So I don't know. I would like to think as problems emerge opinions polls will swing and put pressure on the government. But then no one believes opinion polls anymore.

Although in some ways I would like a second referendum I can't see any way of policing it against both outside interference and yet more lies from our own politicians, media etc.

A clear outcome, a quorum, and a minimum majority would have done it first time round.

In hindsight, Brexit would have been stopped dead in its tracks if the Brexiteers had been obliged to outline their plans before the vote.

I'm so pissed it's costing me not much shy of £500 to ensure the kids and I keep our FOM
BARGAIN
My UK passport cost me around £2000

• which considering I'd had ILR for several decades by then, am married to a Brit and took my British kids to the citizenship ceremony

was less than many of the recent immigrants around me that day had paid.

Great Britain was around in the 1640s following the Union of the Crowns under James I/VI.

www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/overview/union-of-the-crowns/

Cromwell stomped all over Scotland and Ireland before establishing "the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland".

www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Oliver-Cromwell/

Felt compelled to share my research because of all the gruesome details about exhuming him for execution. Being Scottish I learnt nothing about Cromwell at school but can spout Braveheart at will.

The best bit about the Restoration of the Monarchy

I learnt nothing about Cromwell at school

The program about the Stuarts went to Belfast and underscored my point about an understanding of history helping understand now. They still paint murals of Cromwell to this day, in order to carry on hating him.

I wouldn't expect JRMs ilk to gave a shiny shit. But it's another daming slur on Boris' personal ethics. If nothing else, he should know how history works.

Remainers need to not get into a pissing contest over who has to pay the most for their EU citizenship.

It shouldn't cost anything and no one should be losing it. That's what matters.

There was a thread on MN last night asking about emigrating to the US. It made me feel depressed about the loss of FoM. I'm quite sure it's too abstract to have sunk in for most people.

MrsR You'll be so, so glad you paid that in the long term. Your anger is justified - and I'm sure it's made worse by the fact that you feel as though you can see something that should be perfectly obvious to everyone (that losing FoM is a crazy price to be paying for ... what? What exactly?) but no-one around you seems able to see it. And, of course, you're paying for something that shouldn't, really, be removed in the first place. It is crazy; it is anger-inducing. But you've done it. And that is great. And your children, and yourself, are going to be in a far better position because you've done it.

Obviously, the thing that is going to make FoM so valuable in the long run for you and your family is precisely the fact that it is going to be withdrawn and not an option for most people. Ironically, because people appear to have voted for this.

Which is weird.

So 'the will of the people' now mean that you and your children will possess an elite resource.

It may drive you to apoplectic anger right now but hopefully one day you will be able to reflect on the ironies with a degree of tranquillity.

I must admit to having a soft spot for Charles II. It may be coincidence, but his patronage of arts and science and learning (oh how we have fallen) seemed to set the UK apart from the rest of Europe for a century.

Mistigirl is quite, quite right about that.

£500 is a bargain, wish we could pay that to keep FOM. We would pay a lot more than that to keep our EU citizenship, sadly there is no way to do this.

mistigri
Remainers need to not get into a pissing contest over who has to pay the most for their EU citizenship.
I regularly mention the cost of UKBA paperwork because most Brits (of the Remain and Leave variety) are - strangely enough - oblivious of it.

Work visas for the UK are an utter nightmare.
Holiday visas from many countries are just eyewatering
and if EU citizens start to need them to come here to work, they will save their money and work elsewhere .....
If they need to pay to retain the right to work, they will up sticks and head south
leaving the UK a tad short of key workers

I fully expect to see roles advertised as "EU based only" soon. Actually I have already, for data protection reasons. But it hints that when the UK is not a member of the EU, UK nationals may be disadvantaged.

cat you expressed it far better than I can! Thank you!
I am so so angry about it
I know we are lucky that we can get EU passports
But...£500 is a lot of money for us 😔
And...why should I have to jump through these hoops to ensure our FOM rights?
Why should any remainer!??

On Any Questions last week, in answer to the question which EU country would you like to live in if not UK, a brexiteer said Ireland, as there was a big appetite for Irexit and he would help campaign for it. Which as far as I know is not true and went uncontested.

@SusanWalker. I can assure you there is no appetite for Irexit in Ireland. I am sure an English Brexiteer campaigning for this in Ireland will be well received .

Otoh if you are an English speaking lawyer with a background in EU law then this could be an opportunity.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42979920

Despite my European heritage (German, Danish, Swedish, Irish, French....), it's all one generation too far removed for me to get a EU (E27) passport (of course, I have one at the moment which is going to be forcibly removed ) If my dad had been put on to the Irish foreign births register before I was born, I could have got an Irish one. But he wasn't. So I can't.

I can claim a South African passport - but that doesn't really help

MrsR That's a lovely thing to say. For what it's worth, it was pretty clear to me that that is what you were saying.

Finding 'the words to say it' is, I think, one of the most important things that politics can do. It is, frankly, the difference between madness and being able to live, with a narrative that makes sense of the present and the past, and a trajectory that leads towards the future. In fact, I think it's the absolute ground of politics: you need to be able to frame experience into a narrative before you can have a politics in any recognisable or meaningful way.

I think that's why so many of us find these threads a lifeline - and the resource that saves us from depression and a kind of mad anger.

I do think we're living through an experience that still needs wording and narrativising. And it does seem as though we're going to have to do it for ourselves because there doesn't seem to be a coherent narrative coming from any of the old political sources of such a narrative. And, of course, what we're facing is an incoherent reality, and a lot of people around us who, it seems, appear quite unwilling to actually pin a narrative on the reality - for reasons of craven self-interest, boredom, fear, whatever.

Well. At least we have this. And we're making it together. I do think it all helps.

And...why should I have to jump through these hoops to ensure our FOM rights?
Why should any remainer!??

Absolutely!

Great Britain is a geographical term, so it's been around for a long time. As also has Brittany, i.e a smaller Britain. If we started to call it Big Britain, as other countries do, we might manage to knock some sense into ourselves and realise that it's nothing to do with Empire and how wonderful we are were.

BTW as well as a list of job losses - is anyone keeping a list of the silly remarks made by the prominent Leavers? Like the ones about trade deals being simple and sorted out in an afternoon. Eventually there will be a reckoning and it would be good to have a crystal clear record of who said exactly what. Or else we will get a Brexit Arms situation, where they are all pretending the current fudge is what they wanted all along.

Isn't SturdyAlex doing that on Twitter at the moment, Peregrina?

Yes, I think that's a great idea. Though it might lead me to the edge of what is bearable.

Oh Lord, I never visit the Brexit Arms, are they really pretending that this is what they dreamed of?

Part of the problem with Leavers changing their mind is that the noisiest among them spent so much time crowing about having won, shut-up-loser-remainiac, get-over-it-this-is-how-democracy-works etc etc. It is a position that is pretty nigh impossible to back down from without a modicum of humility/maturity. The sad thing is that most Remainers would make them feel bad about it if any of them chose to cross the floor, it's pure projection on their part to imagine that they'd end up with egg on their face.

I'm very 😮 that more leavers aren't a bit surprised by the timing of DDs retirement announcement....

Not a resounding endorsement of his hopes for the future is it?...

Quite lala - I only stalk the Brexit Arms. As you say it was all crow, crow, crow, but then about two threads back it suddenly started to get serious, as new people entered the debate, and perhaps they realised that time was ticking on. Mostly the old hands still bob up to crow every now and again.