Westminstenders: From Russia with Love

[RedToothBrush]

Things just got scary.

The colony of US puppet state or a vassel state of the EU?

Why not just let market forces take their course and let Russia buy the UK?

How did we get to stories of spies and mafia who buy politicians?

Just who are our enemies and allies?

Won't someone think of the effect on house prices in Salisbury?

Try not to don your foil hat, brace yourself and resist shouting 'money laundering too loud'.

More turbulence ahead.

Brexit still seems like such a cracking idea doesn't it?

Red you talk about 'associate membership', but isn't that effectively what being in the EEA is? The EEA members pay their dues and have opted into the parts they want but not those they don't want. May has ruled the EEA out.

Will this Russian business be the unforseen event which kills Brexit off? I have said this before, but ages ago on one of these threads someone recommended Frankopan's The Silk Roads, and what struck me then, and I think others, was how countries could be ticking along nicely and wham, something came from apparently out of the blue to knock them off course. In reality, it probably wasn't wholly out of the blue, it's just that they had become comfortable and complacent and taken their eye off events. As with Brexit, Cameron, if he had his ear to the ground ought to have known about the disaffection held by people in e.g. the north-east, who were only too happy to give him a kicking, and genuinely wanted to the wealth of the south east spread more fairly.

Deborah Haynes @haynesdeborah (The Times)
@jeremycorbyn displaying staggering naivety and a complete failure to understand this state-sponsored attack by Russia on the UK. Appalling. Is he for real?

Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak
Very uncomfortable statement from Corbyn - repeats his call for robust dialogue with Russia - lots of barracking

Harry Cole @MrHarryCole
Once looks foolish from Corbyn but a second blundering response to Russian aggression is very telling. Feels like a real turning point.. anger behind him very detectable.

Tony McNulty @Tony_McNulty (former Labour Home Office Minister)
Utter waffle from Corbyn. Wants to have a robust cup of tea with Russia....now on about diplomatic capacity. Sixth-form rant preferred to standing together in wake of such an attack. If can't act as a grown up - leave it to someone else, politics can wait.

Robert Peston @Peston
SNP leader in Commons @IanBlackfordMP says there must be robust response to act of terror on British soil - and gives much less nuanced backing to @theresa_may than did @jeremycorbyn

Lots of silence on twitter with regard for support FOR Corbyn right now. Certainly, I think it noticeable by absence.

Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound
Corbyn’s domestic policies have got him in contention to be PM as people tire of austerity. His foreign policy instincts are the greatest impediment to him achieving that goal.

Astute observation... I have already seen conspiracy theorists on the case with this one.

Red you talk about 'associate membership', but isn't that effectively what being in the EEA is? The EEA members pay their dues and have opted into the parts they want but not those they don't want. May has ruled the EEA out.

Perhaps, but reframed to say leaving the EU but with a special status.

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
A glaring omission: Jeremy Corbyn refused to even once directly condemn the Russian Government for the #Salisbury attack in his response to PM. This will haunt him.

More Trump comparison fodder.

Beth Rigby @BethRigby
I think I could describe it as cold fury from May as she tells Corbyn how sorry she is that the consensus across the backbenches in dealing with #Russian “doesn’t extend to the right hon gentleman himself”

Note here: The Guardian / Observer have been all over the Russia story for some considerable time.

Yet Corbyn is WILDLY off script with them here.

I'm beginning to suspect Corbyn can only operate as Opposition when everyone is opposed to him, including his own back benches. SMH

Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes
Find someone who'll look at you like Putin looks at Seumas...

Remainers aren't arsed about the IRA thing. They don't like Trump. Trump/Russia bothers Brits.

Seumas Milne is now a liability in this context. Corbyn's speech was staggering.

This WILL affect things.

Kevin Maguire @Kevin_Maguire (Mirror & New Statesman)
The battle lines so far: May v Putin, May v Corbyn, Corbyn v Nearly everybody else including many Lab MPs

Also Buzzfeed is also pretty left wing and all over the Russia story. Not consistent with what has come out of Corbyn's mouth today.

Twitter

Zoe Gardner @ZoeJardiniere 14 March

"Honest question. I don't like Putin's super-rich cronies using UK as a tax-haven but how can they be targeted exactly? I mean they're private citizens with the right to be here, I assume? They can't be collectively punished/deported on the basis of the Russian state's actions."

I think this is a good point. Like Zoe Gardner, I'm no fan of money-laundering, etc. BUT I'm quite concerned about the precedent/legislation - and the ultimate ends to which it will be put - that might be brought in on the back of this.

It's a good example of how you can bring in precedents/legislation on the back of popular feeling against a group that might (OK, will) end up being used against other groups. So, bring in a precedent of limiting right to settle and how, exactly, do we see that end up being used in a nation where xenophobia has been weaponised?

note: Zoe Gardner is no shill for Russia. she's a respected expert on refugees and migration.

note: Zoe Gardner is no shill for Russia. she's a respected expert on refugees and migration.

Well we all know what's happened to "experts", thanks to M. Gove.

cat, this would seem to be the most likely approach:

Robert Peston @Peston
.@vincecable urges @theresa_may to start proceedings using Unexplained Wealth Orders that could lead to assets being seized from the Arsenal investor Alisher Usmanov and first deputy PM of Russia Igor Shuvalov - who allegedy owns £11m apartment close to Parliament

Arron Banks helpfully pointing out that Russia gains from Conspiracy Theories from Anti-Establishment quarters.

I felt Corbyn's defence of Russia was "off"yesterday when I listened to it, but then I read his speech this morning and wondered whether my disliking of his Brexit handling was colouring my opinion. Back to first view now though.

This is proper tin foil hat territory and I'm not suggesting he is a nefarious spy but I think as I wrote yesterday, he reminded me of Trump in giving his speech, and by not opposing Brexit, he has dismantled a way for it to be stopped. Again, not saying he is a puppet of shadowy figures although I am thinking it a tiny bit but I know it's not grounded in reality at all and is probably a product of my fevered imagination but he's acting as a very good Jill Stein/Bernie Sanders figure in that he's sowing chaos and dividing the left.

Pain, that's Corbyn's issue though.

Even if he IS right (and I don't believe he is) the narrative is one about Russian infiltration due to Trump/Russia.

He's walking straight into that.

Trump is HATED by Corbyn's natural allies.

That's why it's so jarring. You can't help but make the comparison and put on a tin foil hat.

That works for people who are anti-establishment would be revolutionaries. And there's where the tin foilers now saying this is a Tory set up are. But for everyone else its a MASSIVE turn off.

This also isn't just a narrative coming from the right. Its one that's coming from the left (Guardian and Buzzfeed). You either characterise them as evil and right wing or evil and middle class.

In doing so, you are going to further alienate those crucial wavering centrists and yes middle class.

Maybe its a strategy that will work and I'm just not seeing it. It could a statement of just how much integrity Corbyn has. Obviously its not hitting the right note with me.

What are we becoming?

Beggars to be fined £100 in Poole
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-43397938

Sorry, didn't see your post red

There's so much to process. Might need to lie down in a wifi free dark place to absorb it all

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
It gets worse. Corbyn’s spokesman clarifies he does not believe there is proof yet that Russia is responsible for #Salisbury - and MI5/MI6 may be wrong: “There is a history between WMDs and intelligence which is problematic, to put it mildly”.

Now, I marched against Iraq. I'm very proud of it. I ALWAYS thought the intelligence and WMD stuff wasn't sitting right. I still have newspaper clips from the time.

On NI, I'm with the need to engage. I do understand why the IRA did what they did. It was about civil rights and oppression.

But, on this?

Nope. I'm not there. I'm REALLY not feeling it.

Pain, after watching Corbyn's speech I think we all need a prescription of sedatives for an afternoon.

I think I understand how it could be a display of integrity, though like you, it's not doing it for me either. But I don't understand about the strategy. Do you mean that he's using this as a chance to go after the Tories and it's not well thought out or that there's something else going on?

I know I've been turned off by him even more. Is that part of the plan (and if so whos?) or am I being played by other people (and if so, who?).

Kevin Schofield @PolhomeEditor
Corbyn spokesman also suggests that a former Soviet state other than Russia may have been behind the Skripal attack: “The break up of the Soviet state led to all sorts of material ending up in random hands.”

Ok, who is this mythical state? And what is their motive?

Come on. Try harder. Not consistent.

Do you think this might be the undoing of him? I suspect the answer will be no, given the loyalty of his core of supporters (where is that familiar from?) but will these permeate the kool aid or further entrench them in their support of him?

Anyways, back to the actual government response....anyone think it is adequate? I'm in two minds about it.

I think I understand how it could be a display of integrity, though like you, it's not doing it for me either.

Admirable - and essential - as integrity is, it needs to be matched with other qualities. Such as empathy, discretion, wisdom, judgement and so on.

If it's a bit too difficult to grasp in wordy semantics, it can be summed up in the perfect aphorism ... there's a time and a place.

All Corbyn is doing (as far as I can see) is reinforce the yah-boo nature of UK politics which has put off a generation, and continues to ferment conflict.

@YTho

No. I personally think we should be shutting down key targets in Russia through cyber warfare.

Also same propaganda tactics against Putin as he's been doing to the UK.