Westminstenders: Throwing Boomerangs

[RedToothBrush]

British politics and media in a nutshell.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_effect_(psychology)#Political_beliefs

No EU progress, no discussion. Just this. Keep everyone in line by bouncing boomerangs.

Disaster capitalism looms, they just have to get us to the edge of the cliff before the centre reforms. That's it.

If the legal roads to stop Brexit are closed as David Allen Green says, then how do you force the political flood gates to open, especially with both the far left and the far right using micro-aggression against the public to keep the centre ground weak?

Answers on a ballot paper on 3rd May.

[RedToothBrush]

A little early, but here's a new thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3235588-Westministenders-Amber-Alert?watched=1

Some how I think it will be a busy week.

[BigChocFrenzy]

Before the current set of safety agreements, all airlines operating overseas had to ship in their own certified staff to maintain aircraft at their own bases.

These agreements enable airlines to rely on local facilities.

Anyone really ancient may remember being stuck in a foreign airport, or even in a plane,
waiting for an engineer to fly in from the Uk with a few basic tools and fix the problem in a few minutes
simply because only the Uk bod was authorised to do such repairs

Ditto US bod for US planes

[RedToothBrush]

Christopher Howarth @CJCHowarth
Even more weird in that we have to leave again on Brexit, so why ratify it?

Andrew Lilico @ andrewlilico
That's what's weird. No-one understands how we can stay post-Brexit. It's the EU Single Patent. It's just like Greece saying we're leaving the EU but we're going to stay in the EU Single Currency.

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Minister @SamGyimah says “innovative businesses will benefit significantly” and membership will be “subject to negotiation” because UPC is “unique” - but it sounds like we want to stay in it???

[RedToothBrush]

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Last week the UK officially ratified membership of a new supranational European court, staffed by judges from EU members, subject to elements of Article 267 treaty on ECJ jurisdiction - the signatory with a wax seal - someone called Boris Johnson.... the Unified Patent Court.

I pointed out this intriguing conjunction about 18 months ago - it is basically “a” single market in patents - and if this is acceptable pooling of sovereignty, and Johnson himself he signed it, then a whole load of innovative options open up


Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico
Weird. No-one understands how tjis is supposed to work post-Brexit. Also, patent rules have become a big part of trade deals. How will this affect any trade deal we do with the US?

[BigChocFrenzy]

DG Never mind the French.
Think of Putin chuckling away to himself
Argentina

All the oligarchs planning their Big Post-Brexit Loot

[BigChocFrenzy]

Whoops, careless !

Looks like No. 10 / Home Office has a dedicated leaker
That's going to cause problems
I wonder how many other civil servants in other depts might be encouraged to leak in the future

If all the skeletons of this govt were revealed suddenly, I suspect it would be like digging up the burial grounds of a prolific serial killer

[TomRavenscroft]

She's GOT to go now, surely?

She won't be fired, though; it'll be another 'mutual agreement' and she won't apologise for or even acknowledge anything –they'll blame it on the press and Labour 'hounding' her and claim that she's had to go because it was all just becoming a dangerous distraction.

I don't know if she'll move to the back benches – she's a bit too much of a threat to May from there as she can buddy up with Morgan et al and heckle from the sidelines.

[DGRossetti]

It's hard not to imagine the absolute sheer joy of the French, watching Brexit from afar ...

Germans, being the more stoic and logical people will reserve their humour till the UK is well and truly schafted ....

[RedToothBrush]

Amber Alert.

We have another leak.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/29/amber-rudd-letter-to-pm-reveals-ambitious-but-deliverable-removals-target?CMP=twt_gu
Amber Rudd letter to PM reveals 'ambitious but deliverable' removals target
Exclusive: Home secretary’s denial last week she was aware of deportation targets at odds with January 2017 letter to May

What odds are there that her statement tomorrow will be to resign??

[BigChocFrenzy]

Aviation:
From last month, but it is frightening:
the UK wants - and desperately needs - special treatment even from the US
(which reserves “special” for itself & sometimes Israel)

https://www.businessinsider.de/open-skies-us-trade-deal-brexit-trump-2018-3?r=UK&IR=T

As things stand, Britain is set to leave the EU-US 'Open skies treaty' when it leaves the EU.
In order to ensure planes can still fly, Britain will need to negotiate a replacement agreement with the US.

However, according to an explosive FT report this week,
the US offered Britain in January a far worse "open skies" deal after Brexit than it currently has as an EU member.

According to their report, accepting such a deal could seriously damage the flying rights of major UK airlines
…
The UK reportedly walked out of secret talks when Washington offered the UK its standard bilateral open skies deal.

"There is no reason to assume the US will budge its position on ownership and control because it never has,
" aviation consultant Andrew Charlton told BI.

"It didn't when the Europeans - which included the British at the time - asked for it.
They've never done it."
"I think Europe will make life hard for the British and eventually give them what they want but not without getting something back in return,"

The other major issue is that the UK will struggle to negotiate a deal with the US until it has negotiated a deal with the EU
…
That is because of something known as "the fifth freedom"

This international agreement means that American airlines are able to fly into the UK and then onto other European cities,
and is heavily used by business travellers.

Under the terms of the agreement,
the UK can't offer the "fifth" to American carriers until the EU has offered it to the UK.

According to Charlton, both US and EU carriers would see that as an opportunity to lobby for their own interests
.…
The other major factor working against the UK is time.

Airlines are already looking to book their schedules for 2019 and put flights on sale,
but they are unable to do so in the knowledge that flights will even by operable by then.
…
"Once the UK falls out of the EU-US Open Skies agreement,
it's not as if they'd fall into a void.
They'd actually fall into something worse than a void."

[NoCryingInEngineering]

I've been reading some stuff my father sent me - snips from his diaries basically from the mid/late 60s when he was a very junior civil service minion involved in bilateral aviation treaties. The team he mentioned for spent about a year negotiating treaties with 3 ex-colonies, so all starting from being part of any existing UK bilateral deals..... gives some idea of the scale of what currently needs to be agreed. To say that 'By October' seems unrealistic is like saying it's a bit nippy at the South Pole

[TheElementsSong]

So they will Brexit and hope to push all blame for adverse consequences onto the EU and Remainers

And as we have seen, there is ample fertile ground for this strategy.

[Peregrina]

The Tory party would tear themselves apart if they don't Brexit
So they will Brexit and hope to push all blame for adverse consequences onto the EU and Remainers

And as much blame as they can onto the Labour party, although it that case Labour can share some of the blame.

[prettybird]

....but there again, the WM Government has a rapist's definition of consent....

A late amendment to the Scotland Act - as published but not previously discussed with the Scottish Government negotiators (fortunately they have good QCs checking out everything that they publish

@jjmitchell: HMG's proposed amendment to the Scotland Act today (it's the same for Wales and N called a rapist's theory of consent: (a) Yes is consent; (b) Silence is consent; (c) No is consent. Imaginative drafting, but what's the point of this rigmarole?

https://t.co/BVLhgswhK5

No wonder the EU wants everything signed in triplicate with every i dotted and every t crossed

[BigChocFrenzy]

Oops sorry, that's Barry Ritholtz who thinks there will be no Brexit
Bloomberg just summarises the mess we're in

[BigChocFrenzy]

I wish I could believe Bloomberg, but unfortunately I think wrt the UK he only talks to a liberal mc bubble.

He is looking at what would be best for the country, whereas UK politicians are mostly going to act on what is best for their party and their own careers.

The Tory party would tear themselves apart if they don't Brexit
So they will Brexit and hope to push all blame for adverse consequences onto the EU and Remainers

My highest realistic hope is for EEA / EFTA with a huge dollop of BINO
but there is still a chance of crashing out - Barnier's concern about a "disorderly" Brexit

[prettybird]

....and we're not even factoring the time for our own parliament to vote on it, let alone agree to it!

[DGRossetti]

The pace of negotiations certainly seems surprisingly leisurely given that it's only 11 months until we leave the EU.

Bearing in mind that it's this October - 6 months away - that the EU 27 will need to see whatever has been cobbled together agreed in order to allow national parliaments to vote on it.

So with summer (looks out of window ) allegedly approaching, how many weeks are left to get everything agreed ?

[prettybird]

....and less than only 6 months until we need the Withdrawal agreement confirmed so that it can be ratified by the E27!

[IrenetheQuaint]

The pace of negotiations certainly seems surprisingly leisurely given that it's only 11 months until we leave the EU.

[Icantreachthepretzels]

, I suggested there was a 33 percent chance that Brexit wouldn’t occur. Now, I raise that to 75 percent

I really hope this person knows what he's talking about.
Maybe he is right.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/29/theresa-may-attempt-to-muddle-through-brexit-fast-approaching-big-crunch

[DGRossetti]

There's something elegiac watching Tory polices destroy their own support base - aspirational homeowners. I wonder what Tory wives and servants think ?

[RedToothBrush]

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/28/never-have-words-meant-so-little-for-a-generation-of-politicians-amber-rudd?__twitter_impression=true
Never have words meant so little for a generation of politicians

I

[RedToothBrush]

amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/apr/28/proportion-home-owners-halves-millennials?__twitter_impression=true
Millennial housing crisis engulfs Britain
Figures showing problem is not confined to London raise concerns about inter-generational fairness


Ownership among 25- to 34-year-olds has plummeted in Greater Manchester from 53% in 1984 to 26% last year. It has fallen from 54% to 25% in south Yorkshire, from 45% to 20% in the West Midlands, from 50% to 28% in Wales and from 55% to 27% in the south-east. In outer London, the proportion has collapsed from 53% to just 16%. Out of 22 regions analysed by the commission, in only one – Strathclyde in Scotland – has home ownership among the young remained stable. It stood at 32% in 1984 and 33% last year, having peaked at 45% in 2002

“In the 1980s it would have taken a typical household in their late 20s around three years to save for an average-sized deposit. It would now take 19 years, the analysis shows.”

[HesterThrale]

American commentators don't mince their words.

Brexit Failure Looks More Likely Every Day.
Too many things are lining up against the U.K. leaving the EU.
Today, I will violate one of my favorite principles, and hereby make this prediction: No Brexit! In other words, the U.K. will not exit the European Union. By 2023, we will look back at the entire ridiculous affair as if it were a rediscovered lost episode of “Fawlty Towers.” Soon after the referendum in which Brits unwisely voted to leave the EU, I suggested there was a 33 percent chance that Brexit wouldn’t occur. Now, I raise that to 75 percent, and with each passing day of incompetence shown by Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration, the probabilities move higher.

www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-27/brexit-failure-looks-more-likely-every-day


A Brexit Choice Between Bad and Worse.
The Brexit vote was a mistake, and ought to be reversed now, not later. Britain's members of parliament are mostly opposed to Brexit, yet can't bring themselves to do their jobs and act on that conviction. The country and its legislators are therefore left squabbling over the choice between a bad result and a terrible one.
Exactly how this catastrophic failure of leadership will be resolved is hard to say. No forthright pro-EU candidate for the highest office has emerged in either party. The country seems exhausted, and calls for a second referendum to reverse the Brexit choice are falling on deaf ears. Nothing short of a major political crisis seems capable of breaking the collective paralysis.

www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-04-27/brexit-michael-bloomberg-on-the-customs-union-choice