Westminstenders: Exit 2020 Vision

[RedToothBrush]

Yet it is a great mistake to suppose that the only writers who matter are those whom the educated in their saner moments can take seriously. There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and the superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, capturers and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people, who thereupon take leave of sanity and responsibility. And it occasionally happens that this underworld becomes a political power and changes the course of history.
Norm Cohn ‘Warrant for Genocide’ 1970

(As referenced by Nick Cohen).

We have a deal (or bits of a deal). Bino til Dec 2020. Then the cliff?

Still a long way to go. It sounds better than it could be. But worse than it initially seems.

Jack Maidment
‏*@jrmaidment*
NEW: Eight EU prime ministers back @LibDems call for second Brexit referendum.
Includes Dutch PM Rutte and Belgium PM Michel.
Joint statement: “We further acknowledge and support the Liberal Democrats’ call for the British people to have the final say on the Brexit deal."

Well...thats gonna go down like a cup of cold sick..🤣

Damian Collins @DamianCollins
.@CommonsCMS have recalled Alexander Nix to give evidence following recent reports in @guardian @nytimes and @Channel4News

Panic over. Police cordon at CA HQ lifted.

seems the LD joint statement might have been somewhat premature. A denial has been issued.

Still.... facts don't matter....

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/03/22/one-third-eu-leaders-back-call-second-brexit-referendum/?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter
One third of EU leaders back call for second Brexit referendum

Think the EU leaders need to keep shtum. If there's any chance of pulling back from this catastrophe it has to come from within. Any sniff that they're keen to have us back will fuel the silly ' they need us more than we need them ' bollocks.

They actually said: “We regret Brexit, but acknowledge the choice made by British voters for the UK Government to negotiate withdrawal."

According to Vince Cable brexit won't happen cos he knows you know... It may not. If it doesn't I will miss this thread!
Boris the animal needs to keep his big gob shut! I look at him and think ' how the heck did you get where you are?'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/22/brexit-britain-norway-theresa-may-transition-deal?CMP=ShareAndroidAppp_Gmail

Vince is a wally.

But nevermind.

Interesting new reflection on why Brexit won't happen.

Stephen Bush @stephenkb
On the upside, the chances that I won't live to see the United Kingdom leave the EU have gone up.

The New York Times @nytimes
Breaking News: President Trump’s national security adviser is out. H. R. McMaster will be replaced by John R. Bolton, a hard-line former U.S. ambassador.

His political position is favouring the blowing up the entire world.

The end of the world would be an unfortunate but somewhat fitting consequence of the recent Anglo-American explosion of i**ocracy. Ah, at least we'd enjoy a bit of shadenfreude as our dying brains register the flashes of nearby nukes extinguishing Brexiters' lives as well.

www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-latest-cambridge-analytica-links-to-blackwater-founder/2018/03/21/255bd508-2cf9-11e8-8dc9-3b51e028b845_story.html
Washington Post on Chun Shun Ko/Ko Chun Shun (aka Johnson), partner in Emerdata:

Company filings show that Trump-affiliated data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica has a link to a Chinese security and logistics company run by Erik Prince, the former mercenary who founded private military company Blackwater.

British corporate records show that Alexander Nix, the suspended chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, is also director of a company called Emerdata Ltd. that was incorporated in August 2017.

Other Emerdata directors include people associated with Cambridge Analytica, along with Johnson Ko Chun Shun, who was appointed in January.

Ko is also deputy chairman of Hong Kong-based Frontier Services Group, whose chairman is Prince.

FSG has attracted attention because of concerns Prince plans to provide special forces veterans to assist Chinese companies investing in risky locations overseas.

China’s biggest state-owned company, Citic, is a major FSG shareholder.

FSG is chaired by Prince. It is a 'military firm' according to Business Insider. It operates mostly in Africa, where China is making huge business inroads, and has invested a lot of money.

Prince is a donor to Make America Number 1, Rebekah/Robert Mercer's Trump-supporting PAC. Mercer is also the money behind Breitbart.

Blackwater is a very powerful and well connected private army (now called Academi) that was used in the Iraq War to do jobs that the regular army or even special forces could not do - because rules...
It got its start when Dick Cneney began reducing the number of official military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its founder Erik Prince is the brother of Betsy de Vos, currently US Education Secretary.

www.democracynow.org/2017/1/18/scahill_blackwater_founder_erik_prince_the
Links between Prince, Mercer, Trump and the floating anti-democratic, right wing, ultra rich who consider themselves above the law/ paramilitary parallel universe that exists in the US.

Includes references to previous incarnations of the CIA, international assassinations, 'enhanced interrogation' and lessons from the Vietnam War.

www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-boasts-won-trump-election-facebook-data-2018-3?r=UK&IR=T
Nuts and bolts of CA's work and a good question from Hillary Clinton herself on how Russia came into it. The question she should have asked is whether home grown anti-democratic forces did it all by themselves.

Thank you PainInTheEar for the @LiamOHare tweet upthread.

This Guardian article fleshes it out considerably.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/21/tory-donors-among-investors-in-cambridge-analytica-parent-firm-scl-group
It concludes thus:
On Wednesday, the Scottish National party’s leader in Westminster, Ian Blackford, asked May about her party’s links with SCL, which he said “go on and on”.

“Its founding chairman was a former Conservative MP. A director appears to have donated over £700,000 to the Tory party. A former Conservative party treasurer is a shareholder,” he said.

“Will the prime minister confirm to the house her government’s connections to the company?”

May said the allegations around Cambridge Analytica were “very concerning”.

Britain Elects @britainelects
Ockendon (Thurrock) result:

CON: 36.2% (+7.8)
LAB: 36.2% (+11.2)
TI: 27.6% (+27.6)

Conservative GAIN from UKIP.

Result determined by drawing of straws/coin toss.

No UKIP (-46.5) as prev.
TI: Thurrock Independents.

Britain Elects
‏
Ockendon (Thurrock) result:
CON: 36.2% (+7.8)
LAB: 36.2% (+11.2)
TI: 27.6% (+27.6)

Conservative GAIN from UKIP.
Result determined by drawing of straws/coin toss.

No UKIP (-46.5) as prev.
TI: Thurrock Independents.

x-post

RTB
Here is a FOI request from August 2016 in which the MOD says that it has paid £190,000 to SCL since 2010.
Note this says that
'The MOD have no records of any direct payments made to SCL Group Ltd since 1st June 2010 but the table below shows the recorded direct payments made to Strategic Communication Laboratories Ltd over this time period.^

Provision of external training 10/11 £40,000
Procurement of Target Audience Analysis 14/15 £150,000

So they have no records of direct payments but they have recorded direct payments. (????)

I think this is explained by the fact that SCL Group is the holding Co.
The operating company so to speak is SCL Ltd.

medium.com/textifire/scl-group-joins-the-us-state-dept-ad5cac8155ff

The use of 'strategic communications' by the US government. Originally conceived as the State Department's 'Global Engagement Center' an information weapon under Obama for use against terrorism, now used to promote Trump's agenda, funded to the tune of $160,000,000.

SCL got a State Department contract thanks to Michael Flynn, who was well connected to it.

It’s eminently reasonable to assume SCL will be fulfilling some of their contracted work by providing the same techniques Cambridge Analytica claims to have employed in recent elections. We can also infer the $160M is still in play despite no GEC leadership, what with SCL receiving a contract in mid-February, so the Department of State brass must be directly involved in the contracting.

Interesting that the discussion turns to whether Labour used CA.

The far more important point is that Brexit may have been engineered.

Result determined by drawing of straws/coin toss.

Just in case anyone is wondering, the rules where there is a tie are very clear, and this is a normal procedure.

Result determined by drawing of straws/coin toss.
I keep misreading this as Result determined by clutching of straws/coin toss.

Tossers clutching at straws is as good an analogy for Brexit as any

Owen Smith calls for public poll on final Brexit deal

Former Labour leader contender, in Guardian interview, reopens split in party’s ranks

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/owen-smith-calls-for-public-poll-on-final-brexit-deal

Personally, I would love to see a split in the Labour and Tory ranks with the more moderate ones of both parties joining the Lib Dems. I think most people in England are middle of the road politically, and the FPTP left/right split serves no one.