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?

No chance of civil war - the govt side & hard right have all the hardware

imo, Disaster will be not so much with a bang as a national whimper

and worst case is:

• the govt delaying rationing until the most vulnerable are actually hungry and / or massive price hikes the poorest can't pay - because doctrinally Tories hate price controls

So maybe 1000s of extra deaths among the poorest of the elderly & disabled

• Rationing being as disorganised in the first few weeks as Brexit has been

• Looting, civil disorder, chaos

• Violence against certain people & groups, worsened by the govt & Brexit supporters ramping up xenophobia and trying to blame everyone but themselves

• The Uk becoming an object lesson, to be quoted in future histories of the 21st century, in how a 1st world economy & society can become a basket case from an incredibly stupid decision that nobody dared stop,
  greatly worsened by politicians carrying it out in the most damaging way, for party & career,
  but also out of ignorance & arrogance - which latter will be punctured for the country as a whole.

The serious papers all running the STimes story now:

https://www.businessinsider.de/a-no-deal-brexit-could-see-britain-run-out-of-food-within-days-2018-6?r=US&IR=T

The Port of Dover, the nearest English port to France, is responsible for handling approximately 17% of the UK's trade in goods, so if Britain crashed out of the EU with no deal and the port collapsed, it could lead to a desperate shortage of essential supplies.

A Sunday Times source said:
"In the second scenario, not even the worst, the port of Dover will collapse on day one.

The supermarkets in Cornwall and Scotland will run out of food within a couple of days,

and hospitals will run out of medicines within two weeks.**

The UK may even have to enlist the help of the Royal Air Force to shuttle supplies to the more remote areas of the country.**

You would have to medevac medicine into Britain,

and at the end of week two we would be running out of petrol as well,"

Let's just say, I'm hoping against hope that Nicola has contingency plans to join EEA/EFTA for when Scotland leaves FUKD after an emergency independence vote

IDS response is to attack the civil servants for producing the scenarios and not being positive:
"We need people with imagination and courage, not frightened rabbits."

Hopefully the govt will be more responsible than IDS
< eyes the heavens for flying pigs, alive or dead >

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/brexit-latest-nodeal-exit-could-leave-britain-with-food-fuel-and-medicine-shortages-in-just-a-a3853921.html

and
Government under pressure to publish warnings of 'Doomsday Brexit'

https://news.sky.com/story/government-under-pressure-to-publish-warnings-of-doomsday-brexit-11393448

The documents are said to have been written for the Inter-Ministerial Group on Preparedness by civil servants at the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU),
Department of Health and Social Care
and Department for Transport.

They were leaked by officials concerned by Brexiteers' confidence about the UK's prospects if it left the EU without a deal
< those frightened rabbits, then, nothing to see here … >

pretty before that:

1. the Scottish public have to actually vote for indie
2. the Westminster govt may neither allow the vote, nor its result to be carried out
3. Indie might actually worsen Scotland*s plight - so many Scottish voters might play safe in an emergency

I did say an emergency independence vote. I do to think if May or whoever is then in charge is facing food riots throughout the UK, she is going to be in any position to refuse a vote

Or she may well end up truly with a civil war.

Support for independence has stayed pretty constant at 45+%. Given that there has been no active campaigning - and when the last Indy vote was announced, it was c35%, chaos in the UK could mean that people would decide that there is nothing to lose.

Not assuming anything though - and it would mean a hard border between England and Scotland . But we'd have frictionless access to Ireland/the EU (assuming that the backstop position for NI was maintained by the EU and that Scotland agreed to both the SM & CU in preparation for reentering the EU ), so could avoid the queues at the English border

I'm old enough to remember the very heavy-handed behaviour towards Irish Nationalists & Republicans.

When the British state - and the oligarchs owning much of it - are really threatened, certainly by a country wanting independence, then the full panoply of heavily armed troops, shooting unarmed demonstrators, torture, assassination of dissidents etc is revealed.

Much like when colonies like Kenya wanted independence

My confidence of no civil war was of course based on the assumption that hard times would make wavering nationalist voters more cautious

That naturally depends on how any pain is shared and handled

Indeed BigChoc

But ultimately, despite the violence heavy handed approach, ultimately all those countries - India, Kenya, Ireland etc - did end up independent. All Britain did was delay the inevitable and cost lives

A counter-view to the reports of May's demise around the EU Council meeting:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/03/theresa-may-zombie-prime-minister-difficult-to-finish-off

In the event of nuclear armageddon, it is said that the cockroach would rule the Earth.

I have a growing suspicion that the hardy insects would find that they shared the post-apocalypse wasteland with Theresa May.
She has demonstrated an ability to survive existential threats that has astonished scientific opinion.

< imo, If she indeed survives to the party conference, she will have a torrid time.
However, surely all the Autumn party conferences should be very seriously concerned about the 1 October deadline for a Withdrawal Agreement to be finalised. Surely … >

Why Cornwall and Scotland first? Furthest to travel?

Thanks for the recommendations.

End of supply chains Cherrypi.

You need more petrol - which will be in short supply remember - to get to them.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3267470-Westministenders-Brexmeggadon-Redux?watched=1
New Thread.

Hard to have much sympathy for Cornwall. Maybe it's not big, and not grown up, but then what the fuck about Brexit is ?