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Brexit

Westministenders: Brexmeggadon Redux.

990 replies

RedToothBrush · 03/06/2018 16:36

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…

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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...

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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.

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33
Icantreachthepretzels · 10/06/2018 11:21

So let them pass their little law. Then let them try to enact it.

What is this vote actually on? is it the customs union vs max fac/equally ridiculous bullshit - in which case DGRossetti you are quite right. Or is it just about us agreeing to leave the customs union and .... . In which case it is essentially a vote that will allow a no deal crash out, and seal our leaving the CU into law.

The EU cannot stop us leaving the CU and crashing out. A vote to stay in the customs union would have meant we could all move forward.The rebels backing down means more months of stagnation - increasing the likelihood of a crash out.

Icantreachthepretzels · 10/06/2018 11:31

And if they don't rebel on the meaningful vote amendment then that is it - no parliamentary oversight. The executive does whatever she pleases (unless it's all a double bluff and she is going to gain the executive decision and then cancel brexit ... unlikely)

The crash out can begin on Wednesday. The EU doesn't really come into it.

mrsreynolds · 10/06/2018 11:37

I've always believed that the rot started with the Thatcher/Reagan love in 🤢 in the 80s.

I've always felt, too, that since then we have been getting more and more like America with each passing year.

Greed is good

No such thing as society

If you are poor it's because you don't work hard enough

The slow but steady privatisation of health and social care

There is no special relationship. If we crash out we will become the 52nd state of the US.

It's all incredibly distressing and I've just been sat here watching it like a slo mo car crash for decades....

EmilyAlice · 10/06/2018 11:43

Broadly speaking I agree with that mrsreynolds. I don't live in the UK anymore, but it does seem to me that looking on from the outside that there has been a huge dumbing down of television and political debate.

54321go · 10/06/2018 11:45

@EmilyAlice
I was wanting to PM you to ask roughly where you are in France, out of curiosity. I was happy to tell you where I am but not on the 'open' forum and my PM 'button' doesn't work (maybe too new a member?).

54321go · 10/06/2018 11:50

If the UK does end up being 51/52 state of the US, the terms will be rubbish. A strategic place for Trump to site some of his nuclear missiles and so on.

EmilyAlice · 10/06/2018 12:01

I am in rural Normandy. 54321.

BigChocFrenzy · 10/06/2018 12:02

plonky The massive problems the Remain campaign had all stemmed from the fact that Remain was controlled by Cameron

He was the idiot who promised the referendum and then had to carry it out - but he didn't have to do that stupid thing in such a stupid way.

Hence:

  • His arrogant assumption that the plebs would bote as he told them, so no need to make an effort to create a proper campaign

  • Voters associating Remain with him and wanting to punish him for austerity etc

  • Keeping the campaign basically a Tory one - little effort to reach out and bring in non-Corbyn Labour politicians who could have appealed to those who would never listen to Tories.

  • A toxic Scottish Remain campaign earlier, that ensured Labour wouldn't get into bed with them for another ref campaign, to avoid getting the blame for broken Tory promises again.

  • Excluding franchise wherever possible to those Cameron thought likely to vote Labour / LDems in later GEs,
    So, many potential votes lost, especially Uk exoats and the young.

  • Forbidding "Blue-on-Blue" attacks .
    So no strongly expressed corrections - the only kind that get reported & noticed - of lies by Tory Leavers.
    This also meant no attacks on many vicious smears against the EU & the "Remain elite" by Farage & co, because so many were endorsed by the Tory hard right

< excuse any typos - in the gym wearing contact lenses, different prescription to reading glasses ! >

BigChocFrenzy · 10/06/2018 12:07

Mind you, last year having seen the worst Tory GE election campaign in living memory,
it is also possible that the previously efficientTory Party machine has lost the ability to communicate with voters effectively and run a competent campaign

Knock-on effects of a tiny membership unrepresentative of general wealth & age demographics?
and of course govt by SPADs whispering in the ears of the PM

Hasenstein · 10/06/2018 12:11

EmilyAlice

I agree that you can't package history into decade-sized bites. It was just that I left the UK in the early 70s, so that point in time was the snapshot I used for my comparison. Of course, there were good things about the UK at the time, but the economy wasn't one of them.

Up to then, I'd only lived in a poor and largely ignored area of the UK and had no basis for comparison, hence my move to Germany being such an eye-opener. I'd thought everyone lived like us and it was a surprise to find they didn't. Without wanting to sound like the famous Monty Python sketch, the first time I lived in a house with a flush toilet was when I went to uni. I realise that there were more prosperous areas of the country, but they were a foreign country to me, too. I'd never been to the south of England and London was as exotic as Mandalay to me.

54321go · 10/06/2018 12:11

@Emily, Me too!

EmilyAlice · 10/06/2018 12:24

54321 I can't pm you either! We are in Calvados.
Hasenstein I can understand that. I do remember when visiting France in the sixties and seventies that I was shocked by how poor and shabby the country seemed to be compared to England. I guess that is what happens when you see somewhere that is so totally different.

DGRossetti · 10/06/2018 12:46

If the UK does end up being 51/52 state of the US

The US constitution is a manual for building a nation.

For the UK to become a US state the process is prescribed. It would start with the UK having to write a constitution that is compatible with the US constitution, and move on from there. From memory the UK could sent observers to Congress (who can watch, but not speak or vote). From memory it starts with 2 observers to the house of representatives. Assuming Congress (that's HoR, Senate and the President) agree, the UK would have to accept the dollar and so on. We'd get a similar number of representatives to California and 2 Senators.

If you thought Brexiteers were ignorant and imbecilic over their knowledge of the EU, imagine how much fun they could have with their spectacular lack of knowledge of the US constitution.

Incidentally, someone needs to explain why crashing out of the "too federal" EU in favour of the solely federal US is a better deal ? Unless (my suspicion) you know fuck all about what you're talking about.

Very early on in the process, parliament would have to acknowledge the supremacy of the US constitution. And given they appear to struggle acknowledging the supremacy of the UK constitution, there might be some fireworks.

On the upside, Boris would still have the chance to be a US president. Unlike any proles who had been naturalised into US citizenship.(I must admit it's at this point I may have stopped helping DB revise for his US citizenship ...).

The thing is, if Brexit is too much hard work - becoming a 51st state is more so. Which leads me to suspect that any ideas of US-UK integration would be predicated on the UK not becoming a state. Which makes sense. That way we wouldn't have any constitutional protections - which would make us an American businessmans wet dream. Workers you can exploit with no worries. We'd be like China. Only smaller and nearer. With castles.

Peregrina · 10/06/2018 13:06

I must admit the Seventies were good for me - I went to University, got married, had my first child and we bought a house. It was the same during the 1930s; there was grinding poverty for many, but then look at the vast number of 1930s semis and ask who was buying them, and realising that a good number of people must have been doing quite nicely.

54321go · 10/06/2018 13:10

OK, how about as an 'annexe' of Russia or China then?
To my mind 'Federal' doesn't HAVE to be so bad. There is such a diversity within the EU that it is unlikely that anything too radical would happen.

mrsreynolds · 10/06/2018 13:24

workers you can exploit with no worries. We'd be like China. Only smaller and nearer. With castles

Yep 😔

BigChocFrenzy · 10/06/2018 13:58

Germany works very well as a federal country

The Uk would be much better as a federal country, instead of many politicians - and Leavers - behaving like
UK = greater England

lonelyplanetmum · 10/06/2018 14:11

Has this link been posted.Worth a read..

" Finally the British government has accepted the inevitable in its “ backstop” proposal: the UK will stay in the customs union, although it will be called something else, and we will have to negotiate regulatory alignment by remaining in the single market for industrial and agricultural goods. The proposal suggests that the UK will be able to negotiate new trade deals with third countries from this position, but you only have to think about that for a moment to realise it is nonsense. The only area where we would have any scope for separate deals would be on services. And who is going to reach a free-trade agreement with the UK on services alone?"

amp.ft.com/content/05dc4920-6b1e-11e8-aee1-39f3459514fd

54321go · 10/06/2018 14:34

Ah, the old 'rename it' trick, like calling Windscale (or was it Calder Hall) 'Sellafield' in the hope that a huge nuclear processing plant may sound a bit more fluffy and wholesome.

Danniz · 10/06/2018 15:01

The US doesn't have a lot in the way of rights. Extremely limited employment rights, for instance. And not much in the way of the right not to be shot by police.

DGRossetti · 10/06/2018 15:01

The Uk would be much better as a federal country,

It would avoid the fiction that Scotland is an equal at least.

BigChocFrenzy · 10/06/2018 15:06

The delusional and hopelessly out of touch DD:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/david-davis-look-beyond-the-bluster-and-the-noise-our-deal-making-with-the-eu-is-bearing-fruit-v3sln8vz6

I'd love to think we'll have BINO, but I still think the chances are only 50%,
because BINO would start a savage Tory civil war, whereas a Brexit recession wouldn't - even a Brexit Apocalypse wouldn't affect those who currently control the Tory party

We'll only have BINO if internal Tory party views change sufficiently for May to decide BINO is best for her party
Even then, she may leave it too late or cock it up

There could be an emergency BINO within weeks after a crash Brexit though

54321go · 10/06/2018 15:22

Hi, can someone remind me what BINO means please.
A new 'reality' TV show, Tories scratch each other's eyes out.
Or maybe more of a 'Hunger Games' format?
It would be something to watch while waiting for food parcels to arrive.

DGRossetti · 10/06/2018 15:22

The US doesn't have a lot in the way of rights

making it easier for the UK to integrate, actually ....

EmilyAlice · 10/06/2018 15:27

Brexit In Name Only
Maybe we should have an acrostic competition?

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