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.

If the UK retains the right to make FTAs that allow imports of goods banned by the EU,
then all chance of "frictionless" trade with the EU vanishes.

The EU would have to impose strict import controls - including NI / RoI - to protect the integrity of their own Single Market

David Lammy @ davidlammy
This is really wonderful news. I’m so happy Sylvester now feels able to go by his own name and is no longer in hiding in his own country. I have invited Sylvester to Parliament to tell his story, and I have invited the Home Secretary to attend the meeting and listen to him.

(*aka 'Albert Thompson')

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/28/amber-rudd-attempt-deport-immigration-witness-blocked-high-court
High court blocks Amber Rudd attempt to deport witness
Jamaican Andrew Van Horn ‘may well be required to give evidence’ over death at Morton Hall immigration removal centre

Shoaib M Khan @ shoaibmkhan
High Court blocks Amber Rudd from deporting a man who is a key witness to the controversial death of an immigration detainee. Home Office wanted to deport him, preventing him from giving evidence to the inquest.

@DLPublicLaw and @gardencourtlaw acting.

The inquest into the immigration detainee's death will consider whether the Home Secretary's actions may have caused or contributed to the death. Rudd wanted to deport a key witness before the inquest and a separate criminal investigation have taken place.

Tomorrow Mail is odd. Attack on a Tory whip, in the week of local elections.

The Sunday Times goes full out with this though.

I believe James Patrick @ j_amesp was making the suggest that something along this lines was about to break earlier in the week.

Steve Bullock @ guitarmoog
Is it just me, or does May's "offer" to EU27 on FoM look suspiciously like the offer EU27 made to David Cameron before the EURef?

I'm pretty sure when you re-gift something, you aren't meant to try to give it to the person that gave you it in the first place.

Re: independent story about nearly FoM which is their front page tomorrow.

MattFoster @ mattlpfoster
Labour looking to keep up pressure on Rudd. Diane Abbott writes to May, Cab Sec Jeremy Heywood and Whitehall ethics chief Sue Gray calling for investigation under ministerial code

Meanwhile Sajid Javid puts his early application to be the next Home Secretary on the front page of the Telegraph.

I agree BigChocFrenzy - in fact, that's exactly what I commented on my friend's post who had linked to that BBC article: that even excluding the issues to us as consumers, if the UK were to enter into such a FTA deal, that would mean that the GFA was dead (assuming that a technological border remains "pie in the sky" - or should that be pigs unicorns flying? ) as the DUP would never ( everrrr ) accept an Irish Sea border/differentiation from the rest of the UK.

It was actually quite horrifying going down the rabbit hole and
reading the comments under that article - they made me glad to retreat to the intelligence and general knowledge of the Westminstenders threads. Even the Brexit Arms seemed reasonable by comparison! Not a single comment mentioned the that the GFA, let along that it was an international treaty to which the UK and Ireland are joint signatories, a number made the Brexit Arms type comment ("You lost, get over it"), and some even said that NI hadn't ever really had a hard border or border posts anyway, even during the Troubles (not that they mentioned that word), so they didn't think that there would be a problem - and if there was going to be, it was the Republicans'/the EU's fault.

God help us and I don't even believe in him!

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

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.”

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

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

, 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

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

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

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 ?

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

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

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

....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

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.

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.

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