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?

Andrew Lilico@andrew_lilico 😂
Since it appears we're no longer leaving the EU for 10yrs or more I'm ceasing all discussion of Brexit on twitter unless & until we go back to leaving (who knows - we might, any time), or until we come to Brexit2 discussions in a few years' time. Bye bye FBPE-ers. It was a blast.
3:14 pm · 18 May 2018

** I missed this - May actually admitted this to her MPs !

Theresa May hits wall over EU customs deal as she admits both her current options are unworkable

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/05/14/theresa-may-hits-wall-eu-customs-deal-admits-current-options/?utmcampaign=Echobox&utmmmedium=Social&utmsource=Facebook#linkktime=1526331253

Theresa May has admitted to Conservative MPs that Brexit negotiations are at an impasse because neither of her current options for a customs deal with the EU will work 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

The Prime Minister invited all 214 of her backbenchers to Downing Street to explain why she has had to go back to the drawing board in an attempt to find a replacement for the customs union.

May admitted this to her MPs..
From that Telegraph article it says
“ The Prime Minister invited her backbenchers to Downing Street in batches of around 50 in an attempt to win over her critics and buy time after ministers failed to agree on Britain’s future customs relationship with the EU.
It follows a public plea for “help and support” in a newspaper article on Sunday in which she also made a pointed reference to the “noisy debate” around Brexit.”

What I don’t understand is why she is pleading for support from back benchers in batches of 50 and the public to change their stance? Why can’t she instruct the ERG in one batch of 50 to change their mind,or disband them?!

Such a group with a far right agenda shouldn’t even exist within Parliament. It is funded by MPs expenses, and is like a revolutionary minority group within the establishment. Imagine if there were 50 MPs with an equivalent agenda of breaking up the (Scot/NI/Welsh) union, or with an agenda of joining the euro. If a similar group were using all their time and MPs expenses to pursue those singular goals, that would not be tolerated.

It’s taken two years but I suppose at least May has moved from that stance of put up or shut up. She spent two years basically wagging her finger and saying that all 16 million++ of us (who believe in collaborative peace, trade and economic forecasts) should do as we’re told. This move to try and win people round is,at least, new.

This move to try and win people round is,at least, new.

Well, our house is a lost cause for her.

DGRossetti Fri 18-May-18 11:29:57
The cynic in me is thinking that some sort of vague terrorist incident, with dark hints about people wishing us harm might be around the corner

You mean like the Skripal poisoning? Serious enough, but didn't result in death. Certainly made a lot of capital out of the zeitgeist.

Here's a question - not the strawman it might seem - which may yet crystallise out of this mess ...

If it came to a simple choice between individual countries in the UK remaining in the EU versus the Union of "The United Kingdom", where would people stand ?

Personally (living in England) I think Englands membership of the EU should come first (which is effectively supporting Scottish, Irish and Welsh separation).

Is this the way Theresa May is trying to engineer Brexit ?

I note that Harry is getting three titles.

Duke of Sussex (England), Earl of Dumbarton (Scotland) and the Earl of Kilkeel (NI).

Chris Ship @ Chrisshipitv
The title Kilkeel has never previously been granted. It is a fishing town on the coast of County Down, below the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland

Kilkeel is near the border. Just, y'know saying...

Earl of an NI fishing town near the border Interesting

Such a shame they didn't grant that title to Prince Louis of Remain

DG Don't you mean England's non membership of the EU as that's what they voted for strongly ish (as did Wales, but narrowly)? At least Scotland voted strongly Remain (more strongly than it voted to remain in the Union).

But as an openly pro-Indy person , I'd be come down on the side of Scotland in the EU and out of the Union if that was the choice.

As I said to ds yesterday when we were talking about, Scotland has actually lost sovereignty as part of the UK - whereas even Theresa May admits that the UK never did lose sovereignty to the EU, it "just felt like we did"

He came up with the idea (which indeed others have floated) that England and possibly Wales should leave the UK and leave Scotland and NI's membership of the EU (as the "UK") intact.

I had to say to him that with May intent on either a cliff edge Brexit or "a" Customs Partnership , we would still hit the same problems she is encountering for NI: the need for border infrastructure between Scotland and England
He is only 17 so can be excused his naïveté when he then said that why can't we just agree a trade deal there and then to allow free movement of all goods. He then got a mini lecture on the WTO and International Law

He'll learn more when he goes off to Aberdeen Uni in September to study International Relations and hoping to do International Law as one of his options

Yes, England - plus maybe Wales and NI if they so chose - leaving the Uk would be a great solution !
Then rUK - which could just be Scotland , or +NI - could revoke A50 and Remain

Reverse Greenland

We discussed this a lot right after the ref, but although it fell off the radar, it still is an example of what could be done - legally wrt world trade rules - for NI
(I don't think either of the main parties would allow it for Scotland)

Greenland left the EU, but remained part of Denmark
rUK could leave the EU, but remain in a UK with NI

I think in this scenario, rUK would need to be defined as Scotland, possibly Wales and NI, who would remain in the EU and England (like Greenland with Denmark) which leaves. It would certainly solve the Gibraltar (and other Dependancies) problem

But that would mean England admitting it is one amongst equals and not riding roughshod, because of its larger population, over the desires of the other constituent parts of the UK not going to happen

DG Don't you mean England's non membership of the EU as that's what they voted for strongly ish (as did Wales, but narrowly)?

Well, I'm suspecting that we'd need the semblance of a referendum to break up the Union, so that question may have to be revisited.

I notice in various forums I lurk on, that there's a narrative being spun that Wales somehow in the same place as Scotland, and I've had some blunt replies when I point out that Wales voted to Leave along with England ...

Meanwhile, one of the more amusing comments on Brexit came from Simon Evans on "The News Quiz", who grumbled that the current reporting on Brexit is far too intense, and - given the speed of developments - maybe a tapestry would be more appropriate ...

However much the Scots wish otherwise, only NI is a special case in the eyes of the UK, the EU and the rest of the world.
Only NI has the GFA, a legally binding international treat pushed by the USA and supported by the EU

• and only NI suffered a recent bloody civil war.

Also, Scotland has a land border with England and would need frictionless trade with England to continue, which would make a special deal riskier for the E27 re Single Market integrity

The EU would not need to object to a special arrangement for Scotland, because the Uk govt would never allow it, let alone propose it and the EU won't interfere in this kind of internal matter.

Hurt feelings and "Me Too" will never trump all the above and Scotland is currently powerless to decide their own terms within Brexit,

If that annoys Scotland sufficiently, they can express this by once again returning 50+ SNP MPs at the following GE and a Yes vote in Indie 2
The Tories are more likely to gamble that won't happen, than allow Scotland to share any special deal that Ni gets

I agree BigChocFrenzy - that was what I was trying to explain to ds.

Neat as the solution might be to allow England to leave the EU (whether or not it continues in the UK as in the Greenland/Denmark model), with the ERG/May's lack of understanding that the EU is not going to change its rules just because England demands it intransigence re the reality of CU/SM requirements, it leaves the problem of yet another land border with the EU - and this time without the backing of an internationally supported treaty.

Ironically, it was one of the arguments that Project Fear used during the Indyref - that Scotland leaving the UK would result in a hard border with the England as Scotland wouldn't be "allowed" to join the EU straight away and that it would take us years to do so as we'd "be at the back of the queue" . I have friends who voted No because they wanted to stay in the EU and didn't believe me when I said the greater risk to our EU membership was remaining in the UK To be fair, she (and her family) has stayed true to her word and is now campaigning for independence (and is very anti-Corbyn, despite always having been a Labour voter)

Bigchoc - is there any way that Scotland could realistically go independent and then re-join the EU, bearing in mind that most of its trade is with England?

OK atm, not without taking a massive economic hit
BUT
the RoI had a similar issue when they took independence and they just sucked it up, to have their freedom - but they were being subjected to open oppression and violence, whereas Scotland hasn't recently

Also, the RoI has drastically cut its dependence on the Uk in the years since independence - the Uk is now a clear 3rd export destination behind the EU27 & the USA -
and has long overtaken NI economically.

Ireland has had a lot of financial support from the EU. I wonder how Scotland would fare, now that there are so many poorer countries in the EU.

the RoI had a similar issue when they took independence and they just sucked it up, to have their freedom

Isn't this what some of our Brexit Arms friends believe - that any economic price is worthwhile, and has to be sucked up, so that England can gain its freedom/sovereignty? Although who has been oppressing England for the last few hundred years is beyond me. It's almost a millenium since the Normans invaded, and more than that since the Vikings came.

Disagree. Need to do more analysis than that!

It isn't really about whether or not Scotland voted to remain.
Westminster don't give a hoot whether NI voted to remain or not. NI's special position is bolstered by the GFA, the EU and Ireland as part of the EU. Also, there was and is a pre-existing whack of the population who never adopted a British identity. Maybe nationality, but not an identity. So what the British people voted for doesn't hold the same sentiment.

It seems amiss that Scotland, Wales and NI don't have something in place to prevent them being swamped by England. The disparity in populations means they will always be run by England which has an almost imperial position. Maybe a federal system would be more balanced.

Frustrating for the more left-wing Scots, even before Brexit. Mind you, if more had voted SNP in the last election, the Tories would be a lot weaker than they currently are. Plenty of Tory MPs in Scotland now.