Westministenders: Brexmeggadon Redux.

[RedToothBrush]

The last thread started about how the Withdrawal Bill was in tatters with The Rebel Forces feeling confident of staying in the Customs Union and there seemed to be a growing backlash towards the hostile environment and the need to reduce immigration.

This thread starts with the revelation this week that Farage has claimed that he never said the UK would be better off financially under Brexit, just that we would be self-governing and the Brexmeggadon Planning Revelation.

The Sunday Times has published a story about No Deal Brexit as senior civil servants have drawn up scenarios for David Davis. If you remember the minister responsible for No Deal is actually Steve Baker. That’s ERG founder Steve Baker. And if you remember he is facing queries from Brexiteers about whether he is truly committed to Brexit on the basis of his recent actions and comments.

There were reported that his plans for No Deal were stalling and proving impossible.

And today we have the Brexmeggadon ‘Project Fear’ article with three levels of jeopardy: Mild, Severe and ‘Oh my fucking God’.

Suddenly all our talk of stockpiling on Westministenders are starting to look rather prudent and enlightened. Ian Dunt’s book is looking like a Brexit Manual. David Allen Green is just standing there going ‘Well’. And George Osbourne is maniacally laughing his head off somewhere.

In the Level 2 Disaster Planning we are looking at Dover collapsing on Day One, food would run out within days and hospitals would run out of medicine within weeks. Petrol would run out within week two too.

As I’ve point out before in the worst case, the government has insufficient police and army to manage a worse case scenario.
Of course this is so explosive, its only been shared with a handful of ministers and are ‘locked in a safe’ and The Sunday Times don’t tell you what is in the ‘Bremeggadon’ scenario.

Or you could just read social media for the ‘scaremongering’.

We now have political attempts to FOI or force the publication of these reports to look forward too. The irony being that in this case the government will have a legitimate case that it would be against national security to release them. Of course they can’t actually admit that either!

Naturally Cabinet ministers and DeXeu has dismissed the article as not true. What else could they do?

Only for a ‘government source’ to claim that the denial was ‘untrue’ to Sam Coates of The Times.

Matthew Holehouse pointed out that the government can’t say for certain what impact no deal will have on medicine supply chains, because review on this isn’t due to finish its “initial” work until “late spring 2018”. Of course we are now in Summer 2018 and its still not been completed. Which obviously bodes well.

And there is talk of Chilcot style inquiries into Brexit sometime in the future. Westministenders is once again way ahead on that score…

----------------------

Meanwhile over in the Labour corner, growing pressure has been mounting on Corbyn. This week has seen the launch of a Corbyn supporting left wing pressure group, comprised of grassroots and trade unions to stop him supporting the harakiri of Tory Brexiteers.

We wait with tepid enthusiasm and sceptical levels of optimism for Corbyn’s climb down. St Jeremy knows what he wants...

----------------------

What does all this talk all mean? I think its difficult to read as much different to the media catching up with what the sane – who have a modicum of understanding of what trade deals, the custom union and the single market actually are - have been saying for sometime. Reality can’t be spun forever. At some point, you have to start preparing the public for the coming shit storm or the inevitable u-turn. This seems likely to be the move to kill off No Deal once and for all.

In terms of a ‘possible civil war’ under Brexmeggadon, its noticeable key Brexiteers are backing away from the cake. That doesn’t smack of civil unrest, that smacks of cowardice and a lack of Brexiteer leadership as no one is truly prepared to nail themselves to the mast as the ship starts to sink.

I also don’t think people will blame other people in the event of no food and no medicine and no medicine. I think people will be fairly unified in blaming those in charge who caused ‘No Deal’.
Oh and The American Trade Wars have began.

Ronald Regan ‘We should beware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends—weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag.’

Hmmm. Sounds a lot like Brexit doesn't it?

Turnips anyone?
Planting season is late June to early July.

twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1005555672015163394

More from Carole Cadwalldr.

BREAKING: Funder of @Nigel_Farage's Brexit campaign met with Russian embassy officials multiple times & offered multi-billion $ gold deal
New from @peterjukes & me

At the second meeting, the Russian ambassador introduced @Arron_banks & @andywigmore to a Russian business with a hot proposition: the opportunity to invest in a multi-billion $ deal to buy 6 gold mines financed by a state-owned Russian bank

The gold deal offered to @arron_banks went ahead on July 5, 2016 - 12 days after the referendum. He refused to give us comment on whether he invested. On July 17, 2016 he tweeted: "I am buying gold at the moment & big mining stocks"

Damien Collins earlier today
Something’s clearly up. @Arron_banks and @andywigmore now say they do want to give evidence to @CommonsCMS on Tuesday because of story that’s about to come out about some emails - which I don’t have a copy of btw. Must be significant, to make them change their minds again

t.co/4ZRLW34kyO?amp=1
Guardian version of the banks story.

Trump Russia, now very firmly Brexiteers Russia.

Sorry, I seem to have implied that your mum was motivated by ideological fantasies and greed. Not what i meant blush. You've already said your mum's view is based on nothing rational. The fantasy and greed bit applies more to the political classes, who played on people's irrationality for their own selfish purposes..

It's all right, I have no bloody idea what she based it on. She talked about too many black people in London, hating Cameron and wanting him gone, angry about Merkel having more say over the euro than Cameron, not enough school places, the bedroom tax, at one point she was even talking about some brandenburg or battenburg group or something who are all lizards in human form (she genuinely did).

At no point did her daughter and grandchildren living in another EU state get factored in at all. The consequences for us were dismissed as either project fear or our own fault for abandoning our country. Not just my mum but my entire family. Then after the result our distress and worry was met with anger, I guess because they didn't want to deal the guilt it triggered. So I was deleted off their social media and I've had no contact with any of them since.

I know from talking to other expats that I'm not alone in this. One woman living in Italy told me her parents voted leave despite knowing that if their daughter lost the right to live in Italy, she'd lose her kids. And she wasn't even allowed to vote.

Ha yes re gold, and the right time for a self-contradictory reminder that I posted my suspicions about this link about a gazillion threads ago (different user name). Nigel Farage is often cited as an ex city trader....kinda true but more specifically he was in fact a gold trader.

*self-congratulatory, that should read.
I'd damn my autocorrect but whilst it's still serving up "Garage" every time I wrote "Farage" I'll forgive it.

The last paragraph in this is very frustrating.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/09/fewer-leave-voters-back-tories-handling-of-brexit-poll

People no longer believe TM will deliver brexit in the time we have left so believe she should resign in order to give the job to someone who can deliver brexit by March.

They just don't get it do they? Yes TM has made a spectacular hash of it - but no one can deliver a good version of brexit by March - because it is an impossible task.

TM could give us a soft brexit it in a matter of weeks if she so chose.
JRM could crash us out.
There is no in between because of the Irish border issue and the necessity of DUP support. No one; not Boris, not Gove, not God himself, can square that circle.

But still people think TM should step aside, with only 9 months left to go, and hand over to someone brand new - as yet to be named - who will deliver a miracle.

It makes me want to bang my head against a brick wall.

I'm beginning to wonder about universal suffrage. Not that we should limit it, but maybe we could all register to vote online - and before we can click the button to finalise it, we have to watch a mandatory ten minute film about the current state of politics - who the main parties are/ what they're policies are and why. Put together by the civil service so it is non-partisan. And you should have to re register before every single election (local election political films could be done by the council). It would, at the very least, weed out those too disinterested to vote. Because at the moment we have people voting for things they clearly have no fucking clue about - and they don't even know enough to know they have no fucking clue.

'Step aside for someone who can deliver' ffs the only person she should step aside for is someone brave enough to end this pointlessness. Anything else is just an even bigger waste of time than we've already suffered through. And time is not something we have a great quantity of.

Oh yes, Nigel wrote many fascinating trading articles in his capacity as a gold trading expert. Gold value went up 22% in GBP terms day after the referendum. Nice deal "bad boys".... and the more UK and GBP gets trashed by Brexit, the more these deals are worth in GBP.

www.ft.com/content/05dc4920-6b1e-11e8-aee1-39f3459514fd
I truly hope this person is right.

But according to the guardian - some of the rebels are going to vote with the govt on Tue/Wed in a bid to stave off a Boris leadership bid.

I really don't know what to think anymore. But I'm frightened.

They just don't get it do they? Yes TM has made a spectacular hash of it - but no one can deliver a good version of brexit by March - because it is an impossible task.

TM should just say this though. She should have said the day she became leader. But no, it went to her head. She did not put the country first. And, unfortunately, lots of "ordinary" people -- those not especially politically engaged (the majority?) have switched off, do think Brexit is "boring". So, they're easily swayed by the "we just need to get on with it" message Richard Madeley was spouting on QT because they're just not interested in the details.

I'm still curious to see if TM is playing a game. She voted remain, even if she had to hold her nose to do so. I don't think she's particularly competent but that doesn't mean there's no plan to show everyone a glimpse of what Brexit, in any form, looks like.

I know this is almost certainly wishful thinking. But then once in a while a situation develops where I think there's just too much bluffing going on for this not to be the case. Things progress, reason seems to take hold, we seem to be advancing a reasonable position for once, then the mental politicians pile in and what is fed back to the EU is pure horseshit.

The debacle with the backstop and DD on Thursday being a prime example.

And still I hear otherwise reasonable people like my dad making stupid fucking statements about not wanting to be ruled from Brussels. The worst part of his argument is that he holds my age against me "unlike you I remember life before the EU". What on earth does that have to do with things?! It's a way to shut up his disappointing remainer daughter, and defer responsibility for the awful decision he's made about his grandchildrens' future without their say so.

I'm disgusted that my husband voted leave. I cannot leave the UK. I can't even get to Scotland without being accused of child abduction. This referendum never should have happened. Ordinary citizenships are not well enough informed to make this enormous choice.

May is at mercy of the right wing press who still want hard brexit. She either delivers that or she goes for BINO. Either way she is finished - soon. No doubt the Brexiteers will insist on their next savour - probably Gove.

If Milliband had won in 2015 none of this shit would have come to pass.

plonky I'm also just old enough to remember life before the UK joined the then Common Marker
when the UK was "The Sick Man of Europe" and getting sicker all the time

The nostalgia of Brexiters seems intent on returning us to that status, but on steroids

[Ordinary citizenships are not well enough informed to make this enormous choice.]
Aided by the power of the web, I can now remember it was Jeremy Paxman who had a series of 3, 1 hour programs shortly before the vote.
In a calm and pretty unbiassed way he explained the way the EU (so called dictation from Brussels) actually works which in it's way debunked or at least moderated some of the wild claims by all the political campaigners of all flavours.
Had people watched it and then spent 10 minutes thinking about it in relation to what all the political parties were saying the vote is likely to have been 'the other way'. A visit to the EU in Brussels 'confirms' many of Jeremy's assertions. You can watch the process in action from the guests gallery. Roughly that a 'think tank' in Brussels comes up with ideas which are presented to ALL the EU members, who then debate it. Eventually each member ratifies or seeks exemption of the particular 'law' and is then responsible for it's implementation. Thus I believe) ALL 'laws' from Brussels were ratified by UK politicians (MEPs). If we got some 'bum deals' blame the UK MEPs (and in turn Westminster) for not negotiating hard enough.

@BigChoc the cognitive dissonance is strong in him. And my in laws, who are thrilled to be getting their blue passports back.

It's absolutely not about intelligence.

FIL, before semi retirement, was a top scientist for a large oil company. He sits on the board of several university institutions and consults for government on renewable energy initiatives. From humble beginnings as the son of a cobbler he was able to bag a fully funded university place and even paid to get his PhD.

My father left school at fourteen and is a self made man. We are from Nottinghamshire, with family caught up in the miner's strikes etc.

Both accept that the world is different now, but still parrot the complete bullshit that if they can do it, anyone can.

When they talk about life pre-EU they are inadvertently saying that anyone who struggled back then was not simply buffeted around by fragile politics and a fragile economy, but because of their own uselessness. It is moralistic poverty shaming, and they're absolutely gagging to have the opportunity to be proven correct (in their view) once again.

Although I can't remember the details of the programme but I am sure that if 'sovereignty' was mentioned it would have said that this is not part of any EU legislation with the possible exception of the ECJ having an overview of specific legal issues.
Immigration policy is (I believe) down to individual countries and FOM for EU members and non EU members are categorised differently.

Plonky, I too remember the UK before joining the EU. It was pretty rubbish. Class ridden, dreadful food, dingy and dirty, politically and economically stagnant, poor educucational outcomes for the majority (not perfect in this respect now, but so much better than it was...)
The trouble with many old people is that they look back and it seems so much better, but that’s because they were young then.

@born yup.

I remember 3 day weeks and power cuts, although I don't remember them affecting my family particularly. As a wider question, did joining the EU (EEC) actually make a significant 'step' change or were we 'turning the corner' already and improving?
Passports should be 'day glo' orange, so you can find them easily!

Passports should have a LoJack device built in. Like when you lose your car in a car park and walk around pressing the key to help find it.

I can remember (albeit as a child) a time before joining the Common Market and the early years of our membership.

I can remember exchange controls, working out how much you could pay in advance in order to have enough to spend on holiday. I remember Thatcher (iirc, as part of EC requirements), withdrawing capital controls.

I remember lots of queuing at passport control - and lots of stamps in my passport.

I remember interrailing before the Euro as an impecunious student and having to starve the day before going to another country as we couldn't afford to change a small amount for the country we were about to leave.

I remember before the Single Market having to get a carnet for equipment I needed for a presentation I was doing abroad. Luckily I worked for ICI so it wasn't me who had to do the work. And that wasn't even something that was being sold or going abroad permanently. I remember the complications of selling abroad: the different categories of "FOB", "Tariffs and Duties Paid" etc. Again, I was fortunate I didn't have to do it myself (although as a product manager, I had to be aware, as it impacted on the competitiveness of our product which way we quoted) - we had a whole department to deal with it

So much bad luck and relatively small mistakes has gone into this situation - makes it so frustrating. There were so many chances to avoid this.
I bet that if Ed Milliband had not decided to stand against his brother for the Labour leadership, David Milliband would still be leader of the Labour party. Probably he would have won over enough people in the referendum debate for the vote to have gone the other way. Similarly, if the couple of MPs who put Corbyn forward to stand in the leadership election, out of feelings of fairness, had not done so, we would not be in this situation. If the vote had not happened at the time when there were so many refugees from Syria, Libya etc coming over to Europe, the outcome might well have been different. If Farage had not survived that plane crash. And so on and so on.

54321go The UK was sliding remorselessly down a slippery economic slope in the 1960s and early 1970s - its revival after joining the then Common Market was no coincidence:
it was cause and effect, having much freer access to a much bigger market on our doorstep

Pity people voted to chuck that away
voted to maybe jump off a cliff rather than reverting to the slippery slope

I agree with borntobequiet that a major reason why some of us felt younger & nire dynamic then is because we were um 45 years younger !
Only some of us recognise this fatal flaw in much of the nostalgia

Thanks BigChoc
I was a young teenager then and watching the news was not a 'thing' and being in the South East things were a bit less grim than other areas of the UK.
I am not sure about going back quite 45 years but I could happily go back 42. Learning a foreign language would have been smart then too!

Danniz If Labour had won the GE - with the more competent brother - there would have been no referendum.

The Referendum furore was entirely created by the Tory party
mostly to resolve the civil war in their TINY membership party

to stop what was then about 100,000 people squabbling, now down to about 70,000

partly to create opportunities to finally smash the welfare state they have always hated
and finally to make it even easier for the super-wealthy to trouser even more money from the rest of us

What dreadful reasons to risk turning the country into an economic basket case !

Before their successful campaign to put all the blame for their disastrous govt since 2010 - austerity cruelties, tax cuts for the rich, benefit cuts for the poor, mismanagement everywhere - on the EU & immigrants,

polls showed little interest in leaving the EU - most people were not even thinking about the EU

* ...unlike you I remember life before the EU*... and

Plonky, I too remember the UK before joining the EU. It was pretty rubbish. Class ridden, dreadful food, dingy and dirty, politically and economically stagnant, poor educucational outcomes for the majority....

and

The UK was sliding remorselessly down a slippery economic slope in the 1960s and early 1970s.

My deep heartfelt sympathy to those with the paradox of loving family members who come out with distorted recollections of the 1970's and use that as an illogical justification for their stance.

For me it's only FIL who regurgitates this rubbish. ( I have had to decide to regard him as DH's problem, and not mine).

I love photography and I've posted about these talented examples before, but these are different links. They show the gritty reality of the 1970's for many. I'd love to get FIL a photo book made up with them, but I'm not that mean.

http://www.nickhedgesphotography.co.uk/photo-gallery/slum-housing-and-poverty/families-and-the-interiors-of-slum-housing