Westministenders: Stalling for Time

[RedToothBrush]

After 14 defeats, the Withdrawal Bill exited the Lords. In much worse condition than anyone dared to predicted.

Now we have those who were viciously against Lords reform, all of a sudden shouting about how much we desperately need it. Well fancy that. Tradition isn't so attractive if you aren't getting your own way.

Daniel Hannan has suddenly admitted that Brexit is not 'going to plan' (there was one?) and Johnson is still his weekly resignation threat.

It now throws things back into Corbyn's court. The Tory Rebel Forces think that they have the numbers to stay in the Single Market, but are blocked by Corbyn's opposition to it.

The decision on the customs union has effectively been pushed back to the Autumn by May, but we have to make a decision about the Irish border by June or trade talks won't go ahead as planned.

The trouble is that the Cabinet can not decide on which option they want to take, but neither is particularly viable anyway. Max Fac means a border in the Irish Sea which the DUP won't like and the Customs Partnership isn't acceptable to the Empire Tories. In any case it seems unlikely that either option could get through the Commons in their current form due to the growing number of Tory Rebel Forces.

May also has a problem with the grass roots. It is more or less impossible for her to deliver the Brexit they desire whatever she tries.

The growing backlash about the hostile environment also undermines the point of Brexit in reducing immigration. Its is growing apparent, WHY we need immigration and that the people who are being targeted for deportation are simply the easiest to pick off and not the ones that people see as 'a problem'. Indeed you have to wonder about how many immigrants ARE a problem. The idea to control immigration after Brexit was not through the border but through the hostile environment, yet this seems now to be something that will be impossible to continue with politically.

Leave.EU have now been referred to the police for breaking Electoral Law. It also turns out that they found numerous ways to beat the spending limit legally. The female data controller has also been found to have data protection law. Meanwhile Banks and Wigmore as well as Nix (CA and SCL), Cummings (Vote Leave) and Silvester (AIQ) have all been summoned to appear because the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. Zuckerberg also does not appear to have completed his answers to the committee as Facebook have had their homework deadline extended to Monday (and has been asked to appear by the 24th May whilst he is in Europe).

Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Dates
Electoral Commission - Tuesday 15th May
Silvester - Wednesday 16th May
Cummings / Nix - Summoned to appear Tuesday 22nd May
Banks / Wigmore - Tuesday 16th June

Also in parliament in next weeks is and interesting looking ten minute rule bill named 'Representation of the People (Gibraltar)' - Tuesday 15th May

Anyway, we are all set for the predictable 'who blinks first' brinkmanship with the UK aware that if the EU don't blink we go over the cliff and parliament aware that if May delays long enough she bypasses parliamentary democracy or put it in a position with a gun to its head.

Who is looking forward to this year's 'row of the summer'?
It could be a long, hot summer.

Anyway, I want France to win Eurovision and the UK to get some points and not come last. Its not going to happen is it?

wild boar are now seen regularly in said streets
brilliant post Bananagio Current crop of wannabe euro fascisti clearly can't run piss ups in breweries. Anywhere.
TBH I wanted to get a reflection from people who aren't going to view it through the lens of being an ignorant Brit!
yet again, this thread is golden.

wild boar are now seen regularly in said streets

Don't the Romans realise how yummy Wild Boar steaks are?!

Don't the Romans realise how yummy Wild Boar steaks are?!

Oh yes but we like them as sugo di cinghiale with pappardelle rather than finding them rummaging through the pile of rubbish outside our apartment.

Britain will tell EU it is prepared to stay tied to customs union beyond 2021 !!

Amazing capitulation and U-turn, if true - and the Torygraph is almost the official organ of the Tory right.


“The Customs Union” and not ”a” CU too (no time to invent a new one) = looks like BINO beyond 2021

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/05/16/britain-will-tell-eu-prepared-stay-tied-customs-union-beyond/

Britain will tell Brussels it is prepared to stay in the customs union beyond 2021
as ministers remain deadlocked over a future deal with the EU,
the Telegraph has learned.

The Prime Minister's Brexit war Cabinet earlier this week agreed on a new "backstop" as a last resort to avoid a hard Irish border,
having rejected earlier proposals from the European Union.

Ministers signed off the plans on Tuesday
despite objections from Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, and Michael Gove, the Environment Secretary.

A pro-European Cabinet source said that Mr Johnson and Mr Gove were "outgunned" during the meeting and reluctantly accepted the plans.

< and so far haven’t resigned >

Lonelyplanetmum:
Revolutions in the world generally seem to lead to regimes just as or more repressive than the ones they deposed don't they? Chairman Mao, Castro, Robespierre? But it is different on whether you look at the long term or short term period afterwards.If there is a long term improvement is then is hard to assess the extent to which the revolution contributed to the outcome.

I think it's safe to say that all revolutions start with lots of egg cracking.

The American Revolution is in many regards more accurately described as a nationalist rebellion. A rigidly stratified social structure remained afterwards, albeit in a society that had the institutions that enabled it to evolve. However, it took a civil war to settle some questions (at least to settle them in name) followed by significant pressure and appeals to the Supreme Court.

The UK evolved too in the aftermath of the American Revolutionary era. Participation in the slave trade and in slave holding was abolished, religious tolerance was established, somewhat uneasily at first, and suffrage was extended. The concept of basic human and civil rights was accepted, again uneasily (but most societies have blind spots, some bigger than others).

What revolutions offer a society is the simple answer to the tough questions, based on the delusion that a clean slate can be made available at the starting gates.

The tough questions remain despite the shortcut of revolution. They tend to be solved (if ever) by the methods and processes that the revolutionaries and their supporters have no time for and try to circumvent - political horse trading, economic policy based on accurate numbers and good modeling, and a population genuinely buying into what is proposed.

BigChoc -insightful as ever. So what we have here is a (failing) attempt at a revolution, or my coup de deceit.

What should have happened before or should be happening to avert this is:

1.political horse trading ( some signs of that e.g. this week?)

1. Economic policy based on accurate numbers ( well those numbers did emerge in the end but I'm not sure to what extent they are formative of policy.)

1. Good modelling ?

1. A population genuinely buying into what is proposed?

No real attempts at the last three as far as I can see?

Steve Bannon, the former Trump strategist, has often voiced the opinion that America’s only hope of moral cleansing lies in war.

The moral cleansing statements are straight out of the zeitgeist of the Belle Epoque.

This sort of talk is always about masculinity.

Can one belong to the Customs Union without being in the EU ?
It would need a lot of writing / rewriting treaties by the lawyers.

More importantly, even after that, the CU is insufficient for frictionless trade:
for that we need the Single Market, currently only available to non-EU members via EEA / EFTA

Is the govt very ignorant / muddled and really means the SM too ?
Maybe they will add the SM when they realise,
or maybe they just want to call it the CU because the SM is politically toxic due to requiring FOM (which EEA / EFTA Article 112 might stop)

Or does May plan to kick the can down the road for a future govt to deal with ?

• the DT reports that the Cabinet agreed to stay in the CU until at least 2023

For the first time, I think it is possible that most politicians of all parties have quietly decided that Brexit is impossible to carry out without great expense and then economic damage,
so they are just going to delay it and "transition" for govt after govt, until Remain is a majority and most Leavers have forgotten / don't care
… all the while negotiating a face-saving rejoin around 2030

until Remain is a majority Remain is growing by a percentage point every 2 months, iirc. Not fast enough to get to 60/40 by 03.19, but not far off.

So, possible outcomes:

• Delay implementation of Brexit for 10+ years until it is politically OK to rejoin
• Cave in before Brexit and agree Single Market deal, joining EEA / EFTA. Transition to work out the details,
• Single Market as a separate pillar of EEA, with transition.
• CETA-type FTA, with special case of NI treated as being in both the EU & UK. With transition but still significant economic harm to the UK
• CETA-type FTA, hard NI border, hence probably no transition, more economic harm to the UK
• Crash / accidental no deal Brexit due to planning by Baldrick. No transition. Worst possible outcome for the UK.

So....
After all this
After everything
BINO???

Now is the time for JRM, Gove, and Johnson to put up or shut up. Of the three, only Gove is likely to do so, IMO.

I can't help but remember the London Review of Books article just after the Referendum, where the writer said that we would take 5 years trying to leave, and 5 to rejoin. That doesn't seem so far out as a prediction.

Remain is growing by a percentage point every 2 months
And could keep doing so or could accelerate, which might be more likely, given the circumstances. What would be very unlikely is for Leave support to increase.

Here's a suggested BINO plus.

We visibly and loudly withdraw all our MEPs, EU judges, civil servants etc. The Daily Mail can show pictures of them all leaving carrying cardboard boxes. Headline -" We've left"

Then we quietly withdraw our Article 50 notification.

Leavers are happy as they've seen us 'leaving'.

Everyone else is happy as we can continue trading as before and try and recover the business lost and money spent.

Ok we would then be food, environment etc rule takers for a while but hey that's our punishment.

So true Born. It is impossible that Leave support will grow.

lonelyplanetmum

No need for any of that pantomime. As we have learned in other places even the most die hard "Brexiteer" hasn't bothered to learn the first thing about Brexit anyway. Just precede the coverage of the Royal Wedding with a proclamation from Theresa May the "The UK has now left the EU" and job done.

and the public wants what the public gets, but I don't get what society wants ... (shows age )

The concept of basic English human and civil rights was accepted,

is probably more accurate, if less praiseworthy. In an attitude that persists to this day.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/17/home-office-suspends-immigration-checks-on-uk-bank-accounts
Legal actions presumably on the way.

Alex Wickham @ wikiguido
Senior Tory Brexiters have dubbed the government’s new customs backstop a “Hotel California Brexit”

That's funny; you can check out but you can never leave! Very apt!

Harry Cole @ mrharrycole
So more key allies of Gove and May are publicly rowing in behind the compromise option that began to seep out last week:
From 9th May
Which is a very literal interpretation of the December backstop.
Rees Mogg not happy.. but Friends of Boris uncharacteristically quiet.

Links to

Damien Green @ damiengreen
Surely the point about a new customs arrangement is that it needs to work smoothly from day one, or we will have chaos on the roads, especially in Kent. If that means a small delay, so be it.

So where is this all headed?

I don't see a deal with the EU as a reasonable outcome of this shambolic process and red lines.

Kevin Schofield @ polhomeeditor
No10 now refusing to confirm that the EU Withdrawal Bill will be passed by the summer recess. #longgrass

I think Theresa is trolling me. A day after I say that we are stuck with the EU Withdrawal Bill rumours start that it's being axed.

Then there is the football manager's denial of the rumor.

And then today no10 won't confirm that the biggest and most important bill before Brexit will be back in the commons asap and passed before the end of summer.