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.

This decision seems to mean that British citizens in NI could have additional rights wrt non-EU spouses, compared to other British citizens
because the GFA allows them to use both British & Irish citizenship

Ian Paisley Jr might like this cake & eat it situation, considering that after the EU ref he was urging all his constituents to get RoI passports.

However, mainland Leavers were very angry before about E27 citizens keeping their current rights wrt non-EU spouses, when UK citizens can’t

Brexit threat to Ellesmere Port

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43300201

Carlos Tavares, chief executive of PSA which owns Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroen, said
clarity over the terms of the UK's departure is "a big concern"

He told the BBC that uncertainty undermined Ellesmere Port's chances of getting more work after 2021.

"We cannot invest in a world of uncertainty," he said.

He added: "No one is going to make huge investments without knowing what will be the final competitiveness of the Brexit outcome."

Speaking to the BBC's International Business Correspondent Theo Leggett at the Geneva Motor Show he said
the decision on whether or not to give Ellesmere more work will need to be taken "very soon".

It's not just businesses/companies that are having to forward-plan to avert possible negative outcomes and safeguard their commitments and outgoings.

Many ordinary people (the ones who are aware of the impending financial downturn, anyway) are having to change their future plans, and I'm sure they really resent it. I certainly do.

Can I still support my kids through uni? Will I be able to afford to have a baby and go part-time? Should I still take on that big mortgage? Can I still afford to retire? Will I still be able to stop work and go back to college to retrain? Shall I still take that bank loan to start my own business (that I've been planning for years).
Does my long-term financial planning still work?
Or is it all going to go tits-up?

Many folk are going to find their lives can't go the way they'd thought. It's shit.

Absolutely hester
All the stuff I'm doing/preparing could all be for nothing
I'm thinking whether I should retrain...might need the money?
Will dhs pension be worth anything?

Davis says that MPs in Britain would get a “meaningful vote” at the end of the Brexit process, but it would not mean overruling the referendum.

In which case, it's not a meaningful vote, but merely a rubber stamping exercise. If the MPs judged that the deal wasn't in the country's best interest, it would be their duty to vote against it. However, it would appear that most have them have forgotten what the word duty means.

Leaked EU response to May's speech

The Guardian posted the complete "leaked" document on Scribe:

https://www.scribd.com/document/373133225/Commission-Lines-to-Take-on-the-UK-PM-Speech?secret_password=4bRzzOP8WZgbcO3oaNS7

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/06/theresa-may-conservative-politics-brexit-solutions-leaked-eu-report
…

• “She is trying to keep the unity in her cabinet, which could so far only agree on ‘divergence from the EU unless the UK does not want to diverge’
  Her speech was more a domestic communication battle than proposing real substance and ways forward.”

• Described the model she wanted as “double cherry-picking: taking in selective elements of EU membership and of third country trade agreements”.

• Said there was “no solution” proposed for the Irish border, criticising what it called the “mutually contradictory UK objectives” of no single market or customs union, no hard border in Ireland and no border down the Irish Sea.
  …
  a Whitehall source condemned the document as a
  “highly misleading summary which was clearly prepared at pace, contains very poor analysis, and does not reflect the detailed conversations we are having with European partners”.
  < hurt feelings there ? >

You recommended this account ages ago BCF it and the GFA one are brilliant.

‏*@BorderIrish*
I dislike Brexit but, speaking as a border, I do admire its ability to completely divide a country.

Interesting pov - from a Sinn Féin MP:

Also, I didn't know before that the 1st woman was elected to Westminster 100 years ago… and was a Sinn Féin abstainer

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/06/sinn-fein-mp-british-parliament-irish-republicans-brexit
…
This year republicans and progressives in Ireland celebrate the election of the first female MP to the British parliament 100 years ago.
Her name was Constance Markievicz.
She never sat in the Westminster parliament.
She was an Irish republican, a feminist, a socialist, and a member of Sinn Féin elected on an abstentionist mandate – rejecting Britain’s claim to sovereignty over Ireland.

One hundred years later I am proud to follow in the footsteps of radical pioneers such as Markievicz.

In 2017, I and other MPs were elected on a mandate to actively abstain from Westminster.
We intend to honour that mandate.

May is about to throw the whole of NI under a bus, no 'could have' about it. She has already started, with the bribery of the DUP.

She will wash her hands of it just as all previous PMs have done, with the notable exceptions of Major and Blair.

The tweeting NI border is one of the few bright spots, woman
I loved the pix of it being in the Brexit talks as an elephant, then as a sneaky tub of grass

Westministenders can destress with this:

mobile.twitter.com/borderirish?lang=en

Brexiters are demonising Ireland & and Irish politicians who dare to stand up for their country, instead of rolling over for Britain.

Their vile insults are destroying decades of work by peace-makers on all sides.
They have no respect for Ireland or its people
They still feel they own Ireland, that it is a rebellious colony that can be forced down

I hope the EU continues to support the RoI wrt the NI border, to show that it protects small countries against bullying by powerful neighbours.

Nothing new there BigChoc. I think Irish people always knew what was lurking in the woodwork.

I actually think the more this happens, the more Irish people are likely to embrace the idea of a reunited Ireland.

I've been looking for the Trump thread but can't find it.

I'm a bit at the news coming out of the US: threatened trade wars with the EU; resignations of senior economic advisers; trump saying he loves a chaotic, combative atmosphere around him (who could have guessed?!?) ...

It really is all so bizarre in the UK and the US.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3180160-Trump-talk-HOW-MUCH-for-that-inauguration?pg=26&order=

This one?

More than trade wars - we might be looking at actual wars if McMaster is removed/resigns as national security adviser and trump takes on Bolton, whom he met with yesterday.

David Frum
@davidfrum
John Bolton tops short list of candidates to succeed HR McMaster as National Security Adviser. In WSJ, Bolton argues for pre-emptive strike vs North Korea

The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First

www.wsj.com/amp/articles/the-legal-case-for-striking-north-korea-first-1519862374

Thoughts about threats....

I just read that Col Skripal's wife, elder brother and his son have died in the past two years, in mysterious circumstances.

So that's potentially six people attacked,including a member of the emergency services who is still in hospital. I find the Britain first type social media responses to this really weird.

If there is an Isis type terrorist attack the press and social media goes crazy for weeks. Yet those terrorist attacks are in most cases radicalised young men or an insane lone wolf. They are more isolated than activity of another government.But right wing groups respond for weeks blaming all Muslims for terrorist attacks, yet ignore Russian ones or show passing interest.

The current poisoning is impliedly carried out by a government. That is shocking beyond words.Yet the response to it, if any dies down quickly.

Why are Russian threats seen as less scary than terrorist attacks?

Is it just because general members of the public are currently more at risk from the latter.

It's the same when Russian military aircraft and ships regularly get escorted away from our airspace and waters. Why is there little interest. This is not seen as a threat by the press in the same way.

Why are Russian threats not a factor in perceiving the benefits of being protected by the EU? Why is being isolated a good idea rather than belonging to a bigger group? We and Other member states help each other with intelligence (which will hopefully continue) and by regularly escorting Russian patrolling vessels away from the channel etc.
Why be paranoid about a radicalised 'islam' threat and not a Russian one?

I've noticed by the way May has stopped all those despicable clutching at straw 'negotiating position' threats to not share our defence and intelligence information with the EU.

Just ramblings really.

This was written when it was thought he might be a Secretary of State. National security adviser is a position where he can do maximum damage

www.newsweek.com/five-reasons-john-bolton-unfit-be-secretary-state-526356

Bill browder’s testimony at the fake news committee touched on this lonely. How we in the uk needed to stop treating the different forms of Russian attacks as separate things but connect them all together in the same way we would terrorism. Ian Lucas who was also there said that we’d eroded our capability to deal with Russia over the last 25 years through arrogance and complacency but that they were going to get much worse in their attacks on us (not military attacks but asymmetric attacks such as on the internet which they could plausibly deny and also had to cause lots of disruption without getting into an actual war which they would inevitably lose). It is well worth a watch. Some of it was also discussed on the trump thread if you didn’t want to sit through it all!

Thanks Painintheear I will look. When you add it all together there's quite a lot of Russian activity here. Yet EU immigration and U.K. bred terrorists are more of a threat???

Why are Russian threats seen as less scary than terrorist attacks
lonelyplanetmum £ ?

J Patrick did a funny thing last night; he posted a deliberately provocative anti Russian tweet which brought some vigorous responses. He's now researching those responses.

My one conversation with an sexist old ex services brexist pre ref included exactly these concerns about national security lonely. We've obviously been at war or have been invaded for quite a while now.

£? The more I think about it, it's really weird.

The press are very happy to drum up scaremongering about Syrian refugees. Just about the most weak and vulnerable people you can get.

Yet stories about Russia are always storms in a teacup.

I have only just realised the extent of the despicable cowardice of the press -^^ picking on the weak and minimising exposure of the powerful.

Bill browder talked about how russia has invested in London properties and how that acts as a barrier and disincentive to investigate

MPs should reject the government’s attempt to cover up for the DUP’s Brexit dark money donation

www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brexitinc/james-cusick/mps-should-reject-government-s-attempt-to-cover-up-for-dup-s-brexit-dark-m

Ben Bradshaw
@BenPBradshaw
The Government will today try to keep secret the source of a huge donation funnelled to Leave campaign through the DUP against advice of @ElectoralCommUK. What have they got to hide?

What have they got to hide exactly pain

Post USSR Russia: fertile feeding ground for corrupt oligarchs
Post Welfare State/Nationalised infrastructure services Britain: fertile feeding ground for corrupt oligarchs.

One is leaning on the other. EU was all we had to protect us. Our parliamentarians are too morally cowardly and intellectually inadequate.

how russia has invested in London properties
London and by default the entire UK property/ ponzi scheme is dependent on their £s.
Russian affluence is a visceral part of London life.

Londongrad: a Russian comedy TV show
www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/21/londongrad-portrait-of-london-russian-inhabitants

I wish Caroline Aherne was around to do a Mrs Merton interview with the Russian consul.