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 thought that her speech was going to include controlling our borders and our money too? This surprised me because we are not in Schengen, so we do control our borders, or would have done if successive Governments had bothered to do so. As for money, when did we join the Euro?

5. Strengthen the union

Well that's already buggered, then.

Ah, I should have read the Faisal Islam link, where this is talked about. Basically, it's the usual hogwash, which will no doubt be punctuated with 'let me be clear' and whatever the latest soundbite is. Strong and Stable bit the dust, I think?

I've applied to get my kids added to the register of Foreign births so I can apply for their Irish passports (thanks mum!)
It's quite a complicated procedure
I need letters from both their Drs and schools
Interestingly ds2s head teacher said this was the 3rd one THIS YEAR she has been asked to do
Ds1s head teacher rang me in a slightly panicky way to ask if ds1 was leaving the school 🤣
So so so pissed off I'm having to do this to keep my kids rights of FOM
at least I've got the option though 😔

I'm not even going to watch it
Whats the point?
Havent watched QT for about 18 months....

Or... since a deal which passes these 5 tests is nigh on impossible, is this the first step to saying 'hang on a minute'?

I am nagging my son and daughter in law to get their son added to the Irish register of foreign births.

I wish I could do the same myself, but can't find a trace of other EU nationality, and DH's 'Irish' granny was born in the UK - prior to 1922, so I am not sure what status she would have had anyway.

I'm lucky to be here at home in the relative warmth, though wrapped in an extra fleece blanket and with my indoor hat on (v. cold house).
However, looking out of the window at the snow covered, frigid countryside, listening to the wind whirling and shrieking (apparently from every direction) outside and hoping that my electricity doesn't fail, my pipes don't freeze and that I will be able to get to a shop before supplies run out, I can't help thinking that this shit weather is a pretty apt analogy for the current political situation.

hester I don't want to be a doom monger but I fear rather than it being the first step to saying "hang on a minute, let's rethink our whole approach and come up with sensible solutions" it's going to be "hang on a minute, let's jack it all in and leave without a deal at all".

Theresa May's speech in a nutshell

"We are going to have deepestest, broadestest and specialestest relationship and it is up to the EU to deliver that for us"

Oh, and a bit anxious about the roof blowing off...

I'm being facetious Motheroffourdragons

But it is part of the UK Government arrogance and hubris that they can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that the EU will protect its own principles - which have societal as well as economic benefits - rather than bow down to the short term politics of one mixed up nation on its periphery.

Listening to the news this morning on both Sky and BBC, and they keep on referring to the "increasing tetchiness and hard line" emanating from the EU (eg Tusk's and Barnier's speeches yesterday): it's not "increasing" - it is just consistent. The EU hasn't changed its position - it's just that they are getting impatient that no-one in the UK Government seems to be listening or believing what the EU is saying. These are the inevitable consequences of the UK wanting to leave the club

pain I hope you're wrong, but fear you're right.

Tory peer, Ros Altmann, is not mincing her words in the New Statesman.

The government’s “red lines” set us on course to leave the EU single market and customs union. The logical consequence of this is there must be a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, or at the very least between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. There is no other real world solution. Unfortunately for the Prime Minister, it is not the EU that is trying to break up the UK – it is her own side. These “Brexiac” (Brexit at Any Cost) red lines, which should never have been accepted, are an existential threat to the UK. Theresa May knows this. Yet, for the sake of the Tory Party, rather than our country, the PM has allowed her ministers free rein. The Good Friday Agreement, which is approaching its 20th anniversary, has succeeded in allowing us to move on from the days of sectarian violence and threats to mainland Britain, as well as peace and prosperity to the island of Ireland. Yet some Brexiteers go as far as questioning the Northern Ireland border agreements. The government’s position seems indefensible. If we leave the customs union and single market, there must be a hard border in Northern Ireland. And if we tear up the Good Friday Agreement, the unity of the UK is at risk. It’s time to choose: we cannot have two mutually incompatible aims. We are also calling into question our trustworthiness as a nation that honours its commitments. Many Conservatives are horrified at what is happening in our name. A few extremist Tories have hijacked the Brexit process and are being allowed to run riot, while our international standing is being undermined. Enough is enough.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2018/03/extreme-brexit-could-break-uk-and-conservatives-me-are-horrified

Returning to the concept of "EU citizen" I wonder if there is a precedent that it be considered a quality that anyone born as a UK Citizen after the UK joined the EEC, and before it left (midnight 29/3/2019 ?) can be considered as possessing.

And something which the UK would have to agree - by treaty - that it will respect the rulings of the ECJ on.

(I believe I got the inspiration from reading how the UK has set out it's rules on citizenship for people born abroad).

The unfortunate side-effect is you would end up with differences in siblings and families, since at least one quality of being an EU citizen is FOM. So a UK citizen born between 1973 and 2019(?) would be guaranteed FOM under the Brexit treaty. People born before, or after, not so much.

I believe this is connected or might be what the Dutch legal action is over.

Obviously Remainers already know that the UK parliament can legislate whatever it wants (watch this space). But removing existing rights and freedoms retrospectively is something that even North Korea would look at and say cor blimey, that's a bit bloody strong !.

It's all very well Tory peers speaking out but why don't those Tories of both Houses make it clear that they are going to vote against a hard Brexit? There are enough of them to easily face down the extremists. And then cut the crap about the 'will of the people' because no one knows what that is, except that they want change.

BBC is suggestion Mays speech is going to say "we can't have everything we want".

Hows things over at the Brexit Arms, where Brexiteers were drooling over the prospect of .. getting everything they want ?

borntobequiet. I lived in a house in the countryside during a really bad freeze. Not near mains water so the water was supplied by water pipes coming across the garden from a 200ft deep well. The pipes were buried sufficiently deep but too near the surface for the -10 to -17 temps. If you have an outdoor tap, you leave it on. Overnight, too. Just a small trickle or flow. Keeps the H2O running and it won't freeze. Houses where the people did this had their water throughout. And radiator heating. I suppose it would work inside too.

I'm so sick of talk of the 'will of the people'.
You can't thoroughly discover 'TWOTP' in a one-off ref and expect this will to last forever, or to work for everyone.

And Labour. Why do they have to respect TWOTP? They didn't set up the ref and never would have. It's a Tory thing.
They could have said, 'if we get into power, we'll have a thorough review to discover how to address these problem EU issues, but we don't have to follow up on this Tory thing. It's their idea and it doesn't work.'
Governments frequently don't follow through on previous administration's initiatives.
It's JC/JMc who wanted to go along with it.

(Tinfoil hat on.)

borntobequiet with the added bonus that as well as the weather being a suitable analogy, it's also a real world example of how the EU benefits us

UK running out of gas, warns National Grid
Perfect storm of freezing weather and supply problems prompts call for more fuel immediately

www.theguardian.com/business/2018/mar/01/uk-is-running-out-of-gas-national-grid-warns-freezing-weather?CMP=share_btn_tw

Theresa Griffin MEP
@TheresaMEP
Luckily we are part of the internal EU energy market & can rely on our EU neighbours to supply gas to the UK in emergencies

Faisal Islam was making the point that May always adds two wee words to what she says she wants:

"as close a relationship as possible "

"as frictionless a border as possible "

I know she is covering her backside, but how many times do Tusk, Barnier and the pesky Remainers have to remind her that the "as possible" = not very and definitely "not as frictionless as you seem to think it will be"

The trouble is so many lies have been told, by people who should have known better, and not refuted properly by people who should have been refuting them. So we have now got to the point where a large number of people believe that a hard brexit is not only possible, but beneficial and that any evidence to the contrary is a lie. I don't really know how the country comes back together from this. A disastrous hard brexit will be the fault of remainers and the EU. A soft brexit ditto. It's all such a mess.

Lol at Farage's army. Given the average age of a brexit voter it'll be more like dad's army.

Governments frequently don't follow through on previous administration's initiatives.

An exception being the GFA which is one thing our country's done which could really be seen as being above party politics.

I said earlier (last week) that following the GFA, the UKs standing as a pragmatic, intelligent, rational country, willing to give 110% for a peaceful solution was pretty high. Even middle East countries were coming to us for advice.

Pissed away by an illegal war, and bunch of self-serving MPs.