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.

Faisal Islam @ faisalislam
Ed Vaizey, who did not rebel in Decembers lost vote, withering in Customs Union debate: “if it is in the interests of our economy to be in a customs union, it should be able to do so without being accused of betraying Brexit”...
George Freeman, another Tory MP who did not vote for Grieve amendment, describes opinion in his constituency: “I want to be in SM not political union, Mrs Thatcher took us into the the Single Market, I want to be in the market not the Union” - 2 Tory MPs not in 12 from December
Former minister in Liam Fox’ department, Trade Minister Mark Garnier, who was until recently negotiating the trade deals central to the leaving the CU argument - sits himself between Bob Neill, Soubry and Morgan - the “mutineer” naughty step - interesting to hear from him

Can we please have Yvette Cooper MP as a leader? She was powerful in PMQs yesterday and as Home Affairs Select Committee chair and concluded today's 'Customs Union ' debate pinning the gov't to the wall.

Trump is coming!

Friday 13th July.

Worst timing ever for protests. Its summer, when the students are all on break, plus its before school holidays. Plus even if its wet, the weather won't be so terrible that people will stay home. Plus its a Friday.

Laura Kuennsberg @ bbclaurak
No 10 confirms Trump visit for July 13th - a 2nd anniversary present for the PM after 2 years in Downing Street

Plus its a Friday.

The 13th

Of course it's Friday The Thirteenth. Most appropriate.

Laura Kuennsberg @ bbclaurak
No vote this afternoon in Commons on Customs Union - but MPs approve the motion that calls for it, get the sense the debate has cheered the Tory rebels up

Matthew Holehouse @ matthewholehouse
DEFRA to hire 1150 extra staff to handle Brexit policy work.

By comparison, EU's DG-Agri employs in total some 904.

Ok so I get that today's debate and approval of the motion to call on the government to keep the UK in an effective Customs Union falls into the non binding category of motions, being a bank bench motion etc.

I also get that this sort of tactic of avoiding votes you are going to lose really grew under Cameron.

However what I really don't get is that whilst that avoidance tactics maybe fine for less important things. Something like the Customs Union is massive.

So if you are a politician, a true statesman/ woman and you passionately, wholeheartedly believe the path you are headed on is the right one, why aren't you prepared to stand up -as a matter of principle -and be counted and orate your opinion?

Also this avoidance tactic comes from a PM who accused the SNP of treating politics like a game. Pot/kettle.

Lonely, they are trying to delay this until after the local elections.

There is a debate scheduled for May which will have a binding vote on the customs union. All this is just leading up to that.

All it is doing is kicking the pebble down the road.

The decision will have to be made at some point. That vote will be damaging to the party however it goes and May is going to be challenged / undermined however it goes.

There are some who are waiting to see how the locals go before they decide which side they will ultimately back too.

Thank you for the explanation Red - I think I'm just naive. Each time there are political games and examples of putting party before country I'm surprised.

I still expect politicians to have such faith in their beliefs that they'll stand up and being counted even if they think they'll lose. I expect true faith that the merits in their position will win opponents over. But then I suppose the extremists do have that faith?

Just got in from work , what is the news on the CU debate please ?

See faisal islam post above.

Not really much of a development yet.

Shit hits fan next month.

Ah yes sorry , forgot to refresh , thought you all had been a bit quiet

DD said to the HoC Committee yesterday:

“The motion put before parliament this autumn on the final Brexit agreement will be amendable by MPs and its outcome will be binding on the government”

BUT
The EU parliament & all parliaments of its members will be voting on the agreed deal, not the amended one !

However, maybe the EU would agree to stop the A50 clock while the UK has its Parliamentary vote, or even a referendum on the deal

Edward Carson, leading Unionist & UVF founder (Irish War of Independence)
whose statue is still in front of Stormont :

"What a fool I was.
I was only a puppet, and so was Ulster, and so was Ireland, in the political game that was to get the Conservative Party into power."

George Eaton @ georgeeaton
The customs union was mentioned just once in Vote Leave's 53 "key speeches, interviews and op-eds" - the Brexiteers have no mandate for leaving it.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/04/why-brexiteers-have-no-mandate-leaving-eu-customs-union?amp&__twitter_impression=true
Why the Brexiteers have no mandate for leaving the EU customs union

Another cunning plan bits the dust …

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/24/uk-liable-for-divorce-bill-even-with-no-brexit-trade-deal-nao-chief

The UK will have to pay its Brexit “divorce bill” of up to £39bn even if no agreement is reached on a future trade deal with the EU, the head of Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said.

The head of the National Audit Office (NAO), Sir Amyas Morse, said on Tuesday that if parliament approves the withdrawal agreement in a vote in the autumn, it will become a legally binding treaty regardless of the success of separate trade talks.

His remarks are a blow for Theresa May, who has said she will not pay Brussels the money if it denies Britain a post-Brexit trade deal.
…
“As I understand this, the treaty, once approved, will pass into law in time for us to leave the EU, and then will become legally binding.
Therefore the payments would fall to be paid no matter what, under international law,” he said.

“The payments are primarily in respect of continuing membership for the extension period.
They don’t relate directly to whatever the future relationship may be.”

The withdrawal agreement will include a “political declaration” giving the outline of a future trade deal,
which is why the government says it will have a trade agreement in the bag by the time it commits to paying the divorce bill.

It is possible, however, that trade talks could break down after Brexit, with the political declaration never morphing into a fully fledged trade treaty.
In those circumstances, as Morse told MPs, the UK would still be obliged to pay the EU.

* Exclusive: The EU is ‘deeply concerned’ about Liam Fox’s ‘incompetent’ handling of Brexit*
< so are we ! >

https://www.businessinsider.sg/the-eu-is-deeply-concerned-about-liam-fox-incompetent-brexit-preparation-2018-4/?r=UK&IR=T

… , the Commission – led by President Jean-Claude Juncker – has told the EU’s other institutions it is
“deeply concerned about the UK’s incompetent handling of trade deal rollovers,”
and Fox’s “failure to grasp basic concepts and trade-offs,”
a source who received the internal EU briefing told Business Insider.
…
However, the Commission is concerned that Britain is nowhere near ready,
citing “indecision” within the Department for International Trade (DIT) in verbal briefings to officials from the EU’s other institutions.

One former senior UK government official told BI they were not surprised the Commission was worried.
“As it should be,” they said. “Frankly, they’ve [DIT] been messing around for months and not doing any of this.

“Most of the people who are having to deal with this are totally ignoring reality.”

The source added that “raging arguments” have been swirling around the department and the government as a whole
over what the correct process is for rolling over the 40 free trade agreements the UK enjoys as an EU member.

Emma Dent Coad @ emmadentcoad
I've just been informed that Tory council candidates walked out of a hustings in the area after a young man questioned their response to Grenfell. Let me be clear - if you cannot talk to your residents, you should not be on the council.

Some people like to pretend that this is playing politics. It isn't. It isn't even political. People have a right to be angry - some have lost everything, they've even lost themselves.

I hope this is not true, after everything that has gone before.

*Liam Fox's incompetent handling of Brexit.
*
The cat woke me up early and I ended up pondering why out of the 316 MPs available- Fox was May's top choice to direct our future?

Why didn't the dodgy Werrity business bring about longer lasting career hurdles? In a normal job, rule breaking would lead to disciplinary action and prevent decent references for a new role.

By way of reminder what I read on Fox ( mostly from wiki) :

•Fox expressly denied that Werrity worked with him in any capacity.( Lie)

• Fox claimed that Werritty never joined him on trips abroad. ( Lie)

•Fox blocked senior civil servants from attending key meetings when Werritty was there.

• Werrity had business cards with ' advisor' ( not spelt properly as adviser) to Liam Fox. What is Werrity doing now I wonder.

•Israeli and other financial backers and a private intelligence firm helped fund Werritty's travels with Fox, he belonged to pro Israeli groups etc.

• Fox failed to tell his own permanent secretary that he had solicited funds to bankroll Werritty..

•Werrity was present on 18 overseas trips undertaken by Fox.

•Werritty was present at 40 of Fox's 70 recorded engagements.

• There was something complicated in the Middle East about a meeting in Dubai about voice encryption software and rapid detection systems for the M o D. A deal worth £41 million was allocated no more than 5–10 minutes at the end of the meeting at which Werrity was present despite him never being security cleared.

•Werritty was appointed by Fox as the chief executive of the now disbanded conservative Atlanticist think-tank. This was set up by Fox but closed down by the Charities Commission. It sounds like a Legatum/ Institute of economic affairs type body. It was working with US lobbying group, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

(See the dark money institutions in the Mayer book.)

Why isn't more press attention given to these think tanks anyway? I guess they were here in Thatcher's time too.

This stuff is all just on Wiki and even the Telegraph and the Guardian. It is easy to find.

Where is integrity? Pfeffel Johnson lied in the past to his party (and the government) e.g. about his mistresses pregnancy and the Darius Guppy thing. Yet is rewarded with high office. Ditto Liam Fox. Where is integrity and statesmanship. Where is a vicar's daughter's morality and judgment?

Before the referendum I spent less time reading about politics. Was it always this bad?

Rant over and thanks for the therapy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Werritty

My final thought is that it seems to me that men like Fox and Pfeffel do not have high office despite their past misdemeanours. They have their roles because of the skulduggery that went before. That can't be right surely? Why do their constituents turn a blind eye at the ballot box?

I agree lonelyplanet. Where is the integrity and honesty in this government? How do they get away with it all, teflon-style? What would it take to oust them?

Anyway, while musing on unsatisfactory leaders, I came to thinking about Trump's visit. 135,000 have signed up on Facebook for a protest within 20 hours of the announcement. Could this be a chance to protest generally about all current grievances?