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.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/07/women-outnumbered-3-to-1-by-men-in-tory-grassroots-membership-activist-uk-parties

Female activists in the Tory party are outnumbered more than three to one by their male counterparts,
< kills the myth of the blue rinse brigade ? >
and there are significantly fewer women than men in all the main parties.
…
The analysis of party membership in 2017 , by Dr Monica Poletti of the ESRC-funded Party Membership Project based at Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University,
draws a bleak picture of activists in all parties as an ageing and unrepresentative breed.

People who become members … are disproportionately older, whiter and better off than the population as a whole.

Red you are in superb form as usual!

Had an insight last week as to what it could be like with empty shelves in the shops. People were buying in bulk and clearing out the shops all over our area before the first snowflake fell.
Unfortunately I could not do the same (as a lot of people couldn't do) because I didn't have the necessary funds to do so and I was stuck for a whole week living off stew and bits and pieces because I was stranded by snow drifts. Then to top it all no heating or electricity for a bit.
Yes, Britain will be a bleak place for quite a few people when the consequences that everyone thinks will happen after Brexit hits. But it will be made worse by greedy people.
Time to start that vegetable patch.

• Britain will be a bleak place for quite a few people when the consequences that everyone thinks will happen after Brexit hits. But it will be made worse by greedy people.

That's it in a nutshell isn't it. Greed.

The only politicians who have pushed for this and see it as an opportunity are a small but significant minority of greedy politicians. Those who did not enter politics for the greater good but for prestige, self aggrandisement and gain.

And yet people vote for them. I guess the Rees Mogg fan club must either not see the wood for the trees, or are motivated by greed too????

I always think it’s significant but largely ignored that the whole UKIP movement was triggered yes by the press, but the political movement started with Zac Goldsmith’s father, Sir James Goldsmith.

Three wives/ partners, numerous infidelities, gambler and ‘womaniser’, ruthless,eight children, offshore fortune estimated to be worth £300million, total worth an estimated £1.2 billion. Ironically Anglo-French , his referendum party had the sole purpose of funding and increasing EU negativity in the 1990s . It all started there.

During the 1997 electoral campaign he funded five million VHS videos ( remember them?) being sent to five million voters homes to allow him to directly recruit supporters.

You have to ponder, based on his profile, whether he was really selflessly thinking of the whole nation’s greater good.Or was greed a factor?

Even Lady Annabel later launched her own Eurosceptic campaigning organisation, the Democracy Movement.

Although both these political parties failed back then, many supporters went on to join UKIP which of course grew over the next 20 years and led to the referendum majority.

Lonelyplanetmum I could cope just about with shortages etc because I've had to be frugal for a long time. I am determined over the next year to become self sufficient to an extent by growing more food in my garden rather than flowers. But it will never be a level playing field. It will always be those that have and those that have not.
Brexit consequences will hit hard to those who have never done without the hardest. But its all relative isn't it? I despair when people moan about what they won't be able to do I.e travel etc well there are millions in this country who can't do that now!
They moan that opportunities for their children will dwindle. Millions of people see their children unable to get out of poverty now. Talented and gifted children unable to be upwardly mobile.
I do understand how people will naturally worry about their future and their families future it is only natural. But as I said it is all relative.
The people voted and they decided. The government have to see it through. Trouble is this government is useless. We will not get a good deal because the government are crap negotiators and the EU are determined to punish us.
All we can do is pull together leavers and remainers and see it through. it's all people like me can do, see it through, we have no choice now but see it through.

I'm not angry with MrsR. I get why she's angry
Me too. Very pleased for anyone who can get out. And specially for MrsR
Utterly ridiculous that we should be having to even consider these things.
The Chinese theory sounds as good as any red As dangerous as anything is the chaos of our security and public services right now.
Saw this.
Insurance profits up as life expectancy goes down in UK.
www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/03/07/legal-general-profits-amid-slowing-rise-uk-life-expectancy/

P.s I'm not a leaver or a remainer. I did not, at the time, feel I knew enough to make an intelligent choice so abstained. I like this thread because though I don't say much because I am of inferior intelligence I have learned a lot about politics and people.

Life expectancy for poor people has always been low (sigh)

As someone else who's been through it, mrsr has also suffered for not being British enough. I'm also angry as hell that whilst I'm scraping together money to get my DC on the birth register apparently I have to have to feel privileged for it. Shame it can't be paid for by tears cried or weight of others' words. There's no winning for anyone with furrin taint in little britain.

BigChoc interesting and not surprising stats on tory sexism. Today, as labour is planning to troll Feminists by their response to International Women's day. There's going to be lots of torykip press attacking labour, when as usual they haven't got a leg to stand on. Labour has just adopted the SWP/ momentum model to silence women.

I'm hopeful that the going tide of feminist women (and men) protesting against labour policy might have a chance to change party policy before it's too late. Labour polling is bad, I am sure because of 'brexit' and this.

'growing tide'

Sostenuto the EU is not out to punish anyone, it is simply sticking to what has been said all along. It is working within a regulatory framework.
Trashing the economy of the country through Brexit is in nobody’s interest. It will not help anyone out of poverty, it will make people even poorer. The poorest will suffer the most.
Nobody has to “pull together and make it work”. People have to keep fighting it at all levels until a majority recognises the stupidity of it and reverses the referendum result.
I voted in the first referendum and I remember when Britain was the sick man of Europe and how membership of the EU changed that. It isn’t a perfect institution but it is a damn sight better than the alternative.

majority recognises the stupidity of it
They do, I think EmilyAlice and they certainly will. Game plans include waiting for the fools pushing this through to fall flat on their faces, if they want a crash out, and then we'll be working hard to get back in the EU.

With the euro.

The euro will be a step too far for the vast majority IMO and it us only my opinion so if you shoot me down do it gently!

I think it was David Allen Green who said the UK would spend five years trying to get out and another five trying to get back in.

Mr Ford's admissions come just days after the government scrapped the second phase of the Leveson Inquiry.

Investigator 'targeted politicians' for Sunday Times stories

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-43309118

cat
Yet again you express my views so so much better than I do😁

Yes...yes. the utter utter exhaustion of feeling so fucking angry all the fucking time...its so awful.

I look at my kids friends and im heartsick for them 😔😔 and for yours.

I'm really the furthest from smug about this situation....Im angry. I'm sad. I'm baffled. I'm not smug.

It's not the money really. I can sell stuff on e bay (and have done)
I can borrow from my mum (and have done)

It's the fucking injustice of having to jump through these hoops to retain something I voted to keep.

Bad loser? Remoaner?

Fuck, yes.

It will depend on the economic realities Sostenuto. When people actually live the ecomic consequences of Brexit, all manner of things will change.

Oh
Happy women's day everyone
❤

Ryanair boss threatens ‘end of cheap holidays’ to make Britain ‘rethink’ Brexit

metro.co.uk/2018/03/07/ryanair-boss-threatens-end-cheap-holidays-make-britain-rethink-brexit-7367981/amp/

Ryanair’s boss is threatening to ground its planes in a last ditch attempt to persuade voters to ‘rethink’ Brexit.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary hopes he can convince the British public by making them realise they are ‘no longer going to have cheap holidays’.

He told an audience of airline leaders in Brussels: ‘I think it’s in our interests – not for a long period of time – that the aircraft are grounded.

‘It’s only when you get to that stage where you’re going to persuade the average British voter that you were lied to in the entire Brexit debate.

‘You were promised you could leave the EU and everything would stay the same. The reality is you can leave the EU, yes that’s your choice, but everything will fundamentally change.’

Mr O’Leary warned that there would be a ‘real crisis’ as flights between the UK and the EU are disrupted after Brexit.

He said: ‘When you begin to realise that you’re no longer going to have cheap holidays in Portugal or Spain or Italy, you’ve got to drive to Scotland or get a ferry to Ireland as your only holiday options, maybe we’ll begin to rethink the whole Brexit debate.

‘They were misled and I think we have to create an opportunity.’

EasyJet chief executive Johan Lundgren, who was on stage alongside Mr O’Leary, interrupted him to say: ‘If you start grounding your planes, I’m flying.’

Carsten Spohr, the boss of German carrier Lufthansa, added: ‘In theory, if we could use this industry to prove to the British how wrong the decision was, that might be a good thing.’

The single market for aviation, created in the 1990s, means there are no commercial restrictions for airlines flying within the EU.

Mr O’Leary has repeatedly warned that airlines will be forced to cancel post-Brexit services from March 2019 if no agreement is reached in the Brexit negotiations by September, because schedules are planned about six months in advance.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said in January that he is confident flights will not be grounded because ‘it’s in the interests of everyone’ to maintain the open market for aviation.

Happy women's day everyone

#hungerforfreedom In honour of Yarls Wood sisters who include one who was locked up for reporting domestic violence, and another 27 year old who has lived in britain since she was a child, but been locked up and threatened with deportation, some are doing a fast today in solidarity.

‏*@DavidLammy*
My question to the Immigration Minister on Yarl's Wood: surely indefinite detention of asylum seekers and refugees and threatening to accelerate deportations without due process is in contravention to human rights law. The answer did not even mention the words "human" or "rights"

What we were saying about May and the Home Office a year ago, seems generous in retrospect.

Kudos to O'Leary pain
‏
@EUpoliticsnews
MPs in all three main parties are looking into whether Britain could postpone its exit from the EU to give Parliament and voters more time to consider whether they really want to leave. This could be done by extending the Article 50 negotiation.

• Bloomberg

I've asked many times in the past 20-odd months what exactly "pulling together to make Brexit a success" would actually entail, and never got a substantive answer. Do we have any further details, which don't entirely comprise wishful thinking about positivity, or technology fixing the NI border, or cherries, or cake?

The way I see it, 52% of passengers on the bus have pushed everybody off the cliff, and are suggesting, not even that we all ought to just flap our arms really hard, but that we all simply ought to think positively about being lighter than air.

“Pulling together” means the square root of bugger all.
The brutal truth is that the vast majority of people who will have to attempt to rescue the economy and draw up the legal and political framework voted remain.
Similarly “stop talking down Brexit” would only be meaningful if Brexit were sustained by hot air in the first place.
Oh hang on a minute.....

37% not 52% elements 2 long years ago, and tumbling every day. Despite the obvious funding.