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.

Hi, I just wanted to quickly remark what an absolute knob agent JC is. Thanks and have a nice w/e everyone.

Cailleach
If only it worked for my advantage. They create these child tickets (and prices) and they won't let me rock up and buy one. I should say 'who are you, the age police'? I'm doing life all wrong. I am anything and anybody I want to be from now on.

Better yet 'I am a man. Pay me what you would pay a man'.
That sudden dose of realism would put a stop to many a gallop.

......

So JC has finally nailed his Brexit colours to the mast. The anti -semitism was not a secret and becoming bolder and more open year by year.

I wonder is it clutching too much at straws to hope that the firing of Qwen Smith might be the catalyst that separates realists from ideologues in Labour and the Tories, with a centre group developing.

Whether or not Cambridge Analytica survives, data about our personality types, our predilections, our hopes and fears—information we unwittingly divulge via status updates, tweets, likes, and photos—will increasingly be used to target us as voters and consumers, for good and ill, and often without our knowledge. These tactics will facilitate the spread of fake news and disinformation and make it easier for foreign interests to intervene in our elections—whether they are Russian trolls or British chancers.

The conclusion of the Mother Jones article.

The focus remains on foreign actors and foreign intervention, and meanwhile the real danger right under everyone's nose goes unremarked - the Mercers and their money.

They got their man into the White House, and I am not talking primarily about Trump or even Bannon. I am talking about John Bolton. It took a while but he is there.

How ironic would it be if the only thing giving Bolton pause wrt Iran would be the potential response of Russia (which recently debuted a high powered missile). How likely is Russia to give the green light to nuking North Korea or sending in a team to assassinate Kim Jong Un and 75 of his closest friends in return for sparing Iran?

Separately, but from the same article:
Cambridge Analytica’s reputation for spotty work had circulated widely among Democratic and Republican operatives, who were also put off by Nix’s grandstanding and self-promotion.
I can only imagine how Nigel Farage comes across then.

I have a hunch that at the core of JC's distaste for capitalism is the old anti-semitic chestnut of the world's financial system being run by a secret cabal of Jews who thus pull the economic strings.

It's pretty clear why "May you live in interesting times" is an ancient oriental curse.

Managed Surrender

So this is how Brexit will be managed:
Total surrender and claim victory
then win a GE while the public are still dazzled ?
No worries; they'll have forgotten by the GE after that

https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-trade-customs-union-theresa-may-a-managed-surrender/

Forget red lines, bellicose declarations and rhetoric about the United Kingdom taking back control

• Brexit so far has been a process of managed surrender

British officials acknowledge that Prime Minister Theresa May has mostly had to accept the European Union’s terms
for the divorce and a transition period, to avoid a cliff-edge rupture in economic ties that could have crippled business.

However, the Brits insist, the real negotiation starts now and much is still to play for
…
Dream on!
The withdrawal talks are likely to become even more lopsided as an unofficial October deadline for agreement on the framework of the future U.K.-EU relationship draws near.

Any resemblance with a negotiation among equals is purely cosmetic

If you think London still has aces up its sleeve, consider the process so far

May has lasted in office longer than many pundits predicted she would because,
weak as her grip on power may have been since she lost her parliamentary majority last year,
she has timed her surrenders cleverly
…
on future relations too, May will need to execute a well-timed U-turn if she is to minimize damage to the British economy

And that means the rest of the Brexit process is likely to look very much like it has thus far:
a thunderous standoff masking a gradual retreat

The mural thing dates from 2012 , from a comment JC made on Facebook.

A quick Google shows me a mural depicting white men under Freemason symbols balancing a counting board? on the bodies of black people with other enslaved? black people to the side. How this is specifically anti-Semitic is unclear to me.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/corbyn-criticised-after-backing-artist-behind-antisemitic-mural

And that means the rest of the Brexit process is likely to look very much like it has thus far: a thunderous standoff masking a gradual retreat

YY BigChoc and I think more and more that TM is actually quite good at that.
Remembering she was a Remainer, has kept Hammond in her government, at a strategic place, but has given the hard brexiters such as Johnson roles where they won’t have a lot to say to the Brexit project, I’m starting to wonder if she doesn’t have actually a strategy and that strategy is working.
I’ve also noticed that DD hasn’t been very ‘present’ during the négociations (has he been quietly sidelined?)

www.independent.co.uk/voices/blue-passports-brexit-angry-brexiteers-nigel-farage-fish-french-a8268836.html
For a bit of laugh about the nearly blue passport and the Leavers anger...

From pain's link, Labour peer and former Ed Miliband adviser Stewart Wood said:

“The German Social Democrats had an expression in the 1890s:
‘antisemitism is the socialism of fools’.

Sadly, Labour’s leadership now faces the challenge of having to convince our party and country that they will not tolerate those who confuse the two.”

Doubt you will see this anywhere else but v important. Its about how accountability is seen as a nuisance.

Sam McBride @ SJAMcBride
In a speech in London last night, the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, set out a critique of the Stormont practice - as set out by the head of the civil service last week - of deliberately not minuting ministerial meetings in a bid to thwart Freedom of Information.

RHI inquiry chairman Sir Patrick Coghlin roasting civil servant Trevor Cooper for saying points "implicit" in bland minute of key meeting. Sir Patrick: "I should have thought, again from a common sense point of view, that an implicit minute is not a particularly helpful document"

(NYT paywall) In Brexit Give-and-Take, Britain Gives and the E.U. Takes

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/world/europe/uk-brexit-summit-theresa-may.html

As Prime Minister Theresa May heads for a European Union summit meeting on Thursday,
talks about Britain’s withdrawal from the union are going more or less as hoped for by one side only,
and it is not Britain.

Among the least accurate predictions about the Brexit process was one offered by
Liam Fox, Britain’s international trade secretary,
who once described the looming trade negotiation as “one of the easiest in human history.” 🤦🏻‍♀️
…
May has been forced to retreat from a number of undeliverable promises,
making concessions that have angered some Brexit supporters at home and illustrated the pitfalls of her improvisational negotiating style.
…
“She’s been on a very, very steep learning curve and is just getting to grips with something that is very complex

the evidence suggests that learning on the job leaves you slightly behind the curve in negotiations.”
…
Analysts struggle to identify concessions made by the other side
…
“in general the European Union has got what it wanted.”
…
the detail of future trade ties …
Almost no one outside the British government thinks 21 months is enough time for this task…
“I don’t see how we do without extending it, and, technically, I don’t see how we extend it,”

Such missteps derive from the fact that, in London, decisions over Brexit are motivated not primarily by expert advice, strategic considerations, game theory or negotiating tactics but by domestic politics.

Mrs. May is under pressure from hard-liners who
- perhaps fearing that public support for leaving might ebb -
want to quit the bloc as soon as possible and certainly before Britain’s next elections < JC won't stop Brexit >
…
Gove once claimed that “the day after we vote to leave, we hold all the cards,”
… the opposite is true, with Britain only having a couple of real bargaining chips
…
so far, the belief that Europe’s negotiating position would be determined by the interests of German carmakers has looked like another miscalculation.*
*
Perhaps because of their disdain for the European Union, the Brexiteers seem to have little understanding of their enemy.
Some, including John Redwood, a former cabinet minister, have argued that a show of obduracy in negotiations invariably prompts Brussels to give way.

…this tactic often worked well for Britain during internal discussions as a member nation

< clue: it soon won't be >
…
most analysts say that the bloc’s trade negotiators are used to dealing with hardened counterparts, from the United States to China, and rarely cave in.

Disappointed to hear that corbyn sacked Smith from the front bench, though he may have been seen as undermining the labour position on brexit.

red Disgraceful if the NI civil service are collaborating in this, but it looks like it.

If pressured by politicians to do so, the process is that they should have informed the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service.
If civil servants chose not to take that obvious course, then the most likely explanation is that they collaborated willingly.

and isn't this inquiry with the "implicit minutes" into the DUPs disgraceful "Cash for Ash" affair, huge amounts of money squandered ?

Chris Doige @ BBCChrisD
Derby North's Labour MP, Chris Williamson, has been found in breach of the members' code of conduct. He failed to declare part-ownership of a property in Derby.
He's apologised, but says he was misled by the way the rules are written, which he maintains are misleading. The commissioner disagrees.
His reprimand is to have the newly-added entry in the register put in italics for 12 months.

Would that be the deeply controversial ultra Corbynite socialist Venezuelan AntiSemitic apologist suck up who thinks council tax should be doubled in the most expensive areas who failed to declare he has ownership of more than one house?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Williamson_(politician)

Yes this ultra socialist does appear to have invested in property.

mylittlevespa forgot to say thanks for your explanation

alittleaubergine just saw this on Owen’s sacking

Fred McElwaine
@gingermarauder
Didn’t take long for Corbyn to break his ‘not a single job lost from Brexit’ promise!

Odd isn't it that the comment was originally from 2012 , it became a story once Corbyn became party leader in 2015 and then again now in 2018. Why is that ?

Big Choc, wait til you read this from yesterday:

Sam McBride @ SAJMcBride
More of the DUP-Tory deal money being spend in Northern Ireland: This time £30m to begin eating into "unacceptable" hospital waiting times which have been soaring for several years. But also a blunt warning from the ministerless Dept of Health that its budget remains inadequate.
Through multiple coincidences (marriage, no Stormont ministers & a hung Parliament), Richard Pengelly, the most senior civil servant in NI's Department of Health, is now authorising the spending of money secured by his wife's (DUP MP Emma Little Pengelly) support for Theresa May.

Nothing we should worry about here.

Can I point out that I am no Corbyn fangirl , or even Labour voter at the moment.

frumpety - me neither - have never voted Lab and am deeply suspicious of Corbyn, so to mitigate my own prejudices try to look carefully at what is said about him.

red I am staggered that the civil servant in charge of doling out the NHS part of the DUP bung is married to one of their MPs

He should have been transferred to avoid that blatant conflict of interest
Totally unprofessional management of the NI civil service

We can see how the Troubles started:
decades of Unionists managing NI as their own private fiefdom, because noone on the mainland notices the NI people … until the bombs go off in London

Rachel Sylvester @ RSylvesterTimes
Nick Clegg on how Brexit can be stopped and why Britain needs a new centrist party - interview with @aliceTTimes
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nick-clegg-interview-the-brexit-transition-period-is-an-undignified-act-of-humiliation-hc9m9c6jv
Nick Clegg interview: ‘The Brexit transition period is an undignified act of humiliation’
Negotiations have been a disaster but MPs can save the day, says Nick Clegg

Interesting. This suggests that Clegg thinks that the LDs are a dead duck.

re Corbyn:
I have been aware of him since he became an MP in 1983, so my disgust with him isn't from recent media reports.

He was a popular speaker with militant Palestinian groups in the Students Union when I was a post-grad

• I stayed well away because the disgusting anti-semitic posters and remarks by their supporters put me off going anywhere near them.

He didn't have minders in those days to excuse all this, so of course there was a lot of material that could be dredged up after the weird backbencher rocketed to Labour leader

He has always mixed with dodgy anti-semitic groups & individuals, but the limited publicity about him concentrated on his more newsworthy Irish Republican contacts.

He is probably one of those weak individuals like cheap cushions, who bear the imprint of those who sit on them
And he has mostly let himself be sat on by some very unpleasant type