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?

Ivan Richards speech in Glasgow: Brexiteers' dreams of a golden age are buccaneering blather, says UK's former top EU diplomat

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/05/23/former-eu-ambassador-sir-ivan-rogers-attacks-brexit-red-lines/

Brexiteers’ dream of a second Elizabethan age of trade after Britain leaves the EU is nothing more than “buccaneering blather”,
Britain’s former top EU diplomat Sir Ivan Rogers warned on Wednesday.

In a lengthy and excoriating critique of the entire debate around Brexit, the former top EU adviser to both David Cameron and Theresa May warned that the entire debate around Britain’s future was based on “extraordinary misconceptions” of what was actually available.
…
"No trade policy with third countries, however successfully aggressive, will deliver very quick results, or ones, which on any serious analysis will transform the UK’s productivity performance and economic prospects.

More than 65 per cent of all UK exports are, after all, to the EU, or to countries with whom we already have a preferential deal via EU membership.

The so-called maximum facilitation model will never be accepted by the [EU] 27 side of the table.
Not now.
Not in five years.
Not in 105 years."
…
he said Mrs May had erred in ruling out flexible relationships with the bloc provided for by the Norway, Swiss or deep Association Agreements, enjoyed by Ukraine and others.
"Ruling out these options before truly understanding what either meant, or whether variants on them might be viable, was, in my view, simply an act of folly,"

Today Jeremy Corbyn intends to show up Caroline Makes by visiting the Irish Border. He plans to say there can be no return to a hard border.

Well Mr Corbyn if you mean that, change your policy to stay in the Single Market otherwise keep your lying insincere mouth closed.

When in doubt do as Hungry do and blame Soros.

The Daily Vile Vile Vile. How about a true headline which would be " Plot to subvert our economy".
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I've been playing catch up, as working a lot and am very behind , but is Grease Smugg's Twitter absurdity mentioned up thread. He actually tweeted...

'Conservative Central Office has launched an effective campaign to hold to account MPs whose constituents voted leave but seek to stop Brexit.'

The sheer lack of logic is mind blowing. He represents a remain constituency. Is there really such a campaign? Why isn't there an equivalent one for MPs whose constituents voted remain?

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/ofsted-inspection-outstanding-parents-schools-education-england-a8366136.html?amp&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true
Hundreds of schools have not been inspected by Ofsted for 10 years, figures show
'Schools and parents alike will be concerned to read that the level of independent assurance about schools' effectiveness has reduced'

Grammar schools are more likely to have escaped inspection, the figures show. More than three in five (63 per cent) “outstanding” grammar schools have not been inspected for six or more years, compared to just over a third (36 per cent) of “outstanding” non-selective schools.

Raises eyebrows.

Hands up who wants their kids to go to a grammar school still....

Does anyone ever see 'The European' for sale in their supermarkets? I understand that its sale has been stopped in several, while DM is given prime position in Tescos, Marks and Spencers and others.

This coming Irish abortion referendum result will have wide implications, and looks to have been used by many of the usual suspects to spread the usual.

Six ways Ireland’s abortion referendum could be hacked this week

One of the Facebook ads targeting Irish voters ahead of the referendum is from a group called ‘Flipside Ireland’ (whose location and ownership are unclear). The video ad follows UK-based Caolan Robertson as he attempts to undermine pro-choice activists in Dublin. Robertson previously made a YouTube video on “white supremacy & the KKK” and contributed to Rebel Media, a Canadian far-right online platform. He currently works with former English Defence League (EDL) leader and anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson

www.opendemocracy.net/5050/six-ways-Ireland-abortion-vote-hacked-foreign-influence

Ds1s ex school (I removed him) hasn't been inspected for 10 years...

I had to call an ambulance for my mum in the early hours of yesterday morning.

She was struggling for breath and had chest pain. She has multiple chronic health conditions.

Ambulance arrived after 45 mins of me frantically trying to calm her down and administer what drugs I could. (Our service is the worst performing in the uk)

Paramedics phoned resus....booked her in. Got there...no room.

She was finally sent to majors but wasn't given important tests until shift change.

Then she was sent to MAU. It would have been lovely if the dr assessing her had read her notes. I'm afraid I may have been a bit short with him.
"Do you have any breathing problems"
"she has copd!
😡

She is currently in a ward awaiting ct scan results.

I'm glad she is in hospital and has had tests - they are thinking she has had a pulmonary embolism - but it's a huge reminder of how utterly the Tories have damaged the nhs.

The vast majority of patients in majors were elderly and demented.

It's heartbreaking and scary to see.

....and I noticed another worrying change

(Ive spent a lot of time in a and e in the last 5 years)

The staff had no EU citizens. Mostly phillipino and Indian staff.

My brain doesn't work too well at 4am but I did reflect how the racist leavers have shot themselves in the foot rather in that regard....

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/05/after-windrush-will-rights-irish-brexit-britain-really-be-safe
The inconvenient truth appears to be that most of the actual, legally-watertight privileges enjoyed by Irish people in Britain instead flow from EU citizenship. A report by leading migration barrister Simon Cox found in November that the existing settlement is a "patchwork that may fall apart under post-Brexit political and practical pressures" and said it was impossible to identify a single legal right explicitly conferred on Irish nationals by the 1949 act.

The rights to live, work, access the NHS for free, claim benefits and welfare, and that of British citizenship for children born to Irish parents will all be legally unclear should the government choose merely to keep things as they are in legal terms. Ditto the rights of Irish citizens who arrive from outside the CTA to live and work in the UK.

Perhaps most alarmingly, there would be nothing, said Cox, to legally prevent Britain from excluding or deporting Irish passport holders from the North, including those born there (his report alleged this would contravene the clause of the Good Friday Agreement which enshrines the right of people in Northern Ireland to identify as Irish, British, or both). In this context, Nokes' claim that the Irish had to be third country nationals in the UK is even more concerning.

The situations in which these shortcomings might be exposed might have previously been dimsissed as merely hypothetical. Not so since Windrush exposed the baleful consequences of the hostile environment. Nokes' unambiguous commitment to guaranteeing the rights of Irish citizens will require more than preserving the ramshackle status quo. The bottom line is that, save for selectively ignoring immigration law for the 381,000 Irish nationals in Britain alone, new legislation will be needed to achieve it.

Those campaigning on the issue, like McGinn, are determined to hold the government to it. Dublin will likely do so too. With nearly a dozen pieces of Brexit legislation already choking the legislative timetable before exit day, the government could soon find it has made another rod for its own back.

MrsReynolds

MrsR

What a frightening and disgraceful experience for you both, MrsR
Best wishes to your mum

I'd write to my mp...but what's the point?
It's brexiter Bridgen

Brexit is costing us money.

news.sky.com/story/carney-sees-a-900-brexit-cost-to-household-incomes-11381658

The NHS needs money.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-44230033

I would FAR rather my taxes were spent on the NHS than Brexit. We can't afford both. Surely most people would agree. Simples.

mrsr for you and your dm. Hope she recovers well.

Our trust is quite poor too, though one thing I've found is that once you're admitted to our hospitals then you usually get decent treatment. It's the getting in that's the issue.

I also noted the same last year when dd was hospitalised, a lot less European workers but no more British. The same thought flashed through my mind then too.

The staff had no EU citizens. Mostly phillipino and Indian staff.

Mrs R I'm so sorry your Mum is in hospital. The time of your life when you care for parents with dealing health is such a sad time.

On the nurse front one of my friends is a hospital consultant.She said that she can not implement the care plans she wants due to nurse shortages.She says it's is affecting mortality.

She says the nurses are under such pressure and she said to be blunt the EU nurses were the best, better trained and better language skills.Their decline has left a gaping hole.

Declining not dealing. Sorry.

Kevin Schofield @PolhomeEditor
Labour believe Andrea Leadsom will not announce today that the EU Withdrawal Bill will return to the Commons the week after next, and that nothing has so far been arranged for week commencing June 11 either. Which contradicts what chief whip Julian Smith told Tory MPs yesterday.

I feel so torn

I'm Peri menopausal (sorry for tmi!) And dealing with my own health issues.

I have ds1 who will be doing gcses next year (oh how I loathe Michael gove!!)

And mums health is declining rapidly.
My sister helps when she feels like it.
My brother just refuses to deal with any of it...wouldn't even come and visit with me last night.

I never imagined my 40s being so very very shit :(

I'm so sorry to hear about your mum's experience, MrsR.

Today's headlines about the clash in projects customs costs vs need for more NHS funding make me so angry. This was all clear to anyone who chose to look before the damned referendum, but all the English nationalists were too busy denying basic maths to even engage with what the numbers were saying.

I can't remember who was asking if we were in a bubble on this thread, but I agree that there is still a terrifying lack of understanding among "typical" Britons about where all this is heading. Most people are more likely to have a negative view of rising food prices than they are of Brexit, mainly because the former is a tangible outcome and the other is still being spun via their newspapers.

(I am returning under a new name - used to be Driven.)

mrsreynolds

Best wishes to you and your mum.

Has this been posted...

So another two years of Westminsterenders threads....

uk.businessinsider.com/theresa-may-to-ask-the-eu-for-a-further-two-years-of-brexit-transition-2023-2018-5

LONDON - Theresa May is set to ask the European Union for another two years of Brexit transition as her government struggles to come up with a proposal for arrangements that would avoid a hard border with Ireland.

So another two years of Westminsterenders threads.

Not necessarily. It was pointed out from day one (well I was paying attention) that any extension is the gift of the EU, and would only be likely if it was to support a process which seemed likely to end in a deal.

The UK was specifically told that if the EU suspected any extension was merely to give the UK some leverage in talks, then we could jog on.

Any request now - with the paucity of anything to show for a whole fucking year of "negotiations" - should be rejected out of hand.

And if that's a crisis for Theresa, then boo fucking hoo.

If it means we are catapulted into another General Election - so be it.

From memory, any extension would have to be agreed by the EU27 ? That'll be fun ... the UK must have pissed them all off at some point in the past year.

And, no, the UK isn't going to get onto the Galileo project. This is getting embarrassing now.