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…

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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.

math It looks easy enough at first, which is what the govt thought I'm sure they were aware of the US system and what was used after hurricane Katrina.

However, the cc IT consultant called in to discuss a plan apparently said a working system would be complex and not be ready before 2025.
He was actually turning away business, as that date would be far too late for a crash-out Brexit

Adding money onto a card is easy.

What is far more complicated is setting the right to buy certain amounts of certain goods and no more than that
It was planned for the cc to include details such as photo, address, citizenship, entitlement … not just name

All to function when there may be rolling power cuts for hours, during which the card can't be read for some hours

All good and compelling points Irene, there is something a bit fishy about the whole thing. Let’s hope you’re right!

I'm convinced by irene because I so desperately want her to be right

Irene re JDD:
You are assessing him as if he were a professional civil servant with a normal project to do.
Nothing is normal about Brexit, or the people trying to carry it out.

I think he has approx the job level he claims, but may use the blog to deliberately spread information that either he, or a more senior civil servant or minister wants leaked.
However, he also sounds like someone whose job is driving him to breakdown

1. I think he sometimes posts rumours, but he seems to know 1st hand about the cc rationing scheme R e the other rationing scheme & some "wild" claims: this govt - and previous ones - have squandered millions on absolutely ludicrous ideas, e.g. almost everything about Brexit I would never have believed that London would waste millions on Bojo's vanity projects or that a PM would lie to take us into a war that has created catastrophe in the ME

His posts basically back up North's pessimistic no-deal expectation,
just adding some flesh to how the govt is (not) planning for them and the chaotic incompetence & stubbornness behind the scenes

2. He posted that he was in one dept, I think DexeU, but was moved to another, DIT or Cabinet office, after some political musical chairs / disagreements about what he was doing.

With the chaos in Brexit planning, huge civil service turnover in DexEU, lack of experienced manpower in trade, I can believe there is far more personnel churn than usual.

North does know him, at least his job level and North is fanatical about (rudely) correcting anyone on his blog who post wrong info.
He has never called out JDD.
If JDD did not have a job at this senior level, it would be surprising that North, with all his contacts, hasn't sussed out this con after their many conversations.

3. JDD is not a professional civil servant, but a retired businessman and trade expert who is used to success, but has found himself trying to do the impossible. Like so many civil servants involved in Brexit, he is demoralised and horrified at what may come.

However, he hasn't had years of training in civil service ethics & discretion, so he is whistle-blowing, like he might have done back in his business days if he thought a business was making decisions that could kill people.
As a short-term consultant, unlike other civil servants, he isn't hamstrung with worry about losing a large pension.

He posted at one time he had been questioned by police but released - and North seemed to back this up. He has been more cautious since.
He has also said he wants to be sacked (but not to go to jail) as his contract penalty clause would make it too expensive to resign. Also, I suspect he feels he must stay to the bitter end, trying to stop the inevitable.

4. He is not a frequent poster, compared to the others, just a notable one. He misses weeks at a time, then makes a few posts within an hour or two, he says sometimes he is posting while travelling / waiting, or in a different time zone out of working hours.

The one who really scares me is North
His predictions in the event of no deal, or anything but EEA/EFTA, are terrifying and all his blog posts give references to source materials for trade laws etc

Empty shelves, shortages of some food & medicines, rationing, ports log-jammed, planes grounded, Uk lorry drivers not allowed to drive in the EU, all food exports to the EU stopped for 6 months, other exports too, businesses closing, the economy spiralling downwards, maybe never fully recovering, possibly even pummetting to Argentina basket case levels … police & army only able to protect the govt not the people

That's all from North, a longtime Leaver, which is really scary

I would probably ignore if it was just JDD (a Remainer) but I can't ignore North

https://news.sky.com/story/northern-ireland-police-pause-sale-of-stations-amid-fears-of-hard-border-after-brexit-11394148

The Police Service of Northern Ireland has "paused" the sale of three stations near the border until it knows the outcome of Brexit negotiations.
It is the clearest indication yet that officers are preparing for the possibility of a return to a hard border on the island.

Is North still a leaver then? If so, then WHY?!!!!

I'm a former printer.

A warehouse full of 60million ready printed ration cards? That's one big warehouse alright... Pretty expensive to just have them lying around doing nothing.

From the party that couldn't print its own election leaflets within the period it allocated itself because the UK presses didn't have the capacity - as there wasn't enough paper in the entire country?

Which means they would have been printed abroad - and no one leaked this information? Or someone's made one hefty paper order to the UK. That no one leaked something about or raised eyebrows about.

And we are also assuming that a level of planning has gone on that they have so far failed to manage on Brexit in any capacity.

Assumption therefore must be that if these ration cards did exist it would be for any emergency plan and not specifically for Brexit.

Which if it was the case, why would they be somewhere in 'western Europe'? If you suddenly did need them, you wouldn't want them lying around in a warehouse in Germany. Cos if society had already broken down to that point, then the logistics of shipping 60 million ration cards to the UK would be pretty awkward.

Which means 60 million ration cards would have had to have been already moved to the UK and are stored at a rather large facility and again, no one knows about this. Or they have been sat there for probably decades as a legacy from the cold war. (Far far more likely than Brexit specific ration cards, but even then the cost of storage raises questions)

Which leads me to the credit card option.

Which involves programming which is DH's field.

If they were going to embark on such a project, tell me where the jobs for this have been advertised without it raising the attention of the press?

That's an awful lot of developers it needed to hire.

Which would have involved a lot of planning too. From the government which has got so far with how it's customs union plan is going to work...

Where is all this data for this system coming from? We know that we are lacking in our systems relating to ID in this country. Not everyone is a UK nation in this country. There are gaps which would cause significant issues.

And how has this been planned with the cooperation of supermarkets and their existing infrastructure?

Not to mention, how are you planning to manufacture 60 million credit cards at short notice?

Again, where are you going to keep them?

I'm afraid my position on the ration card issue, is that ration cards take a degree of planning that this government has demonstrated it is incapable of managing / having done already.

That's actually more frightening than the prospect of what has been said in any of those blog posts.

Which is ultimately what would force the government into accepting a deal at the eleventh hour - even if it would be to stay in the EU. They know they would ultimately be literally lynched / be a military coup in that Brexmaggadeon situation.

Or we go to DH's scenario where we go past the deadline and we have two weeks chaos before rejoining the EU in some disaster scenario at the mercy of the EU (which I think is a ridiculous out there idea but one that I still think as likely as the realms of Brexmaggadeon).

My thinking is that civil servants probably have all this in their little Brexmaggadeon melt down report. That a ration card system would not be possible in the time frame within which you would need to implement them.

This is not WW2 Britain. We are a much bigger more complex country. We had a population of 46 million then, but we were a paper based beaucracry and had the manpower and skills for that (plus we didn't have as many immigrants / visitors complicating the issue)

So no I'm not really buying into ration cards of any kind tbh. It's a) not feasible b) not practical within the timescales anyway.

It's black and white chaos or no chaos. Government ultimately knows this, even if they don't admit. Even if they are crazy, head bangers with fingers in their ears. They are gambling that the EU also would not allow it to happen.

It's brinkmanship. Someone will blink. The question is who and at what moment.

Now, at the eleventh hour or as DH speculates, beyond the eleventh hour?

Question: if the UK goes full on basket case what do EU nations do to help their nationals in the UK?

This is where the UK government is gambling.

Also if the UK goes full on basket case how does the EU police the Irish Border?

Again this is where the UK government is gambling.

But I do think there is something of a point there.

Destabilising ANY country on your own border to that extent is not in your own interests. Even if there is a sea in between. Or in case of Ireland without a border.

This is where Brexiteers are probably fairly reasonable in saying they need us as much as we need them.

Except the bulk of the harm would be born by the British in that situation...

Except the EU are not destabilising the Uk - the UK is doing that to itself

It really is like the Blazing Saddles scene:
"Do as I want or I'll shoot myself in the head
Be afraid - I'll splatter your nice suit with my blood"

Unfortunately, what the Uk wants would risk the Single Market
and that is what the prosperity of the EU depends on
It would require them to risk breaking WTO rules
risk other 3rd countries wanting cake like the UK's
All to satisfy a country that is leaving, but wants to keep its privileges

So the EU can't just give in - and they never have to other countries

German industry, for example, has said several times that protecting the Single Market is a higher priority than protecting their Uk markets
That's not just bluff; it's economic facts of life for the EU

Even the RoI, the most affected member, exports more to the E27 than to the UK

In emergency, I expect the EU to evacuate its nationals from the UK, by sea & air, using military transport if needed,
as it would from any other basket case country that can't protect or feed its people

As always, a few will risk it and refuse to go, to avoid leaving say their family

In a real meltdown, English refugees might be sailing on overloaded boats into Calais, or hiding in the Chunnel, rather than across the Irish Sea and then across the NI border.

However, all that really is a state of collapse too far to be likely < crosses fingers >

I expect instead that the economic downturn will cause many mobile professionals to emigrate to the EU, USA, OZ etc
and that other mobile workers will do an Auf Wiedersehen Pet

A massive braindrain and drain of the most enterprising mobile workers
A country's real treasure

Reminds me:
If you intend to move your treasure / assets abroad, do so before panic sets in,
because currency controls may be re-imposed
We had these until MrsT removed them in the 80s, due to the then new EC rules about free movement of capital.

The crazy element is including the photo, the citizenship info, the address, shoe size or whatever, on a rationing card when all you need if food/fabric/footwear is scarce and you are interested in the appearance of equal access to commodities is certain kinds of food or other items added to a swipeable card to certain levels. You buy your allowed two dozen eggs in week one and you are done until the month rolls around again. This would involve a tweak on the food stamp model where certain foods (rotisserie chicken for instance, and other prepared items) are identified and not allowed. People could carry a separate ID that could also be swiped..

I agree with RTB though, that there are no ration cards and no plans for any, and that producing them would be a task so vast and requiring so much effective planning and work that it would fail. It would also require a realistic approach to Brexit. At the moment, the only reason I can see the government considering them or any semblance of them is to recreate the spirit of The War for the purposes of national team building. Maybe crazy should be the watchword here.

Anyway, moving on:
www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-kent-44370368/cross-channel-migrants-gain-access-to-uk-using-ireland
BBC video on Calais immigrants being smuggled to the UK via Dublin, Belfast, and ferry to Scotland using stolen passports.

Except the EU are not destabilising the Uk

In the Brexiters eyes they are - we want all the benefits of membership without having to pay a penny and to pick and chose which EU laws we obey. That so far the rest of the EU has been calling our bluff wasn't part of the script. (The script got torn up the day the result was announced - Cameron would have got an oh so slender majority, the Tory headbangers would have ousted him, installed Johnson, and continued to slag off the EU.)

As for it now - it's not like the War, where there was an external threat, although the right wing were perfectly happy with Hitler until the War started. Most of the general populace neither knew nor cared what was happening in Nazi Germany; putting bread on the table was a bigger concern for a majority.

What happened with ration cards and drugs previously? They weren't as developed and available anyway in the 1940's I assume.Will drug rationing apply, if so presumably individual medical decisions would need to be made?

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-05/merck-is-said-to-prepare-for-supply-blackout-in-brexit-planning

So the EU can't just give in - and they never have to other countries

I remember our Brexit Arms friends going on about this about 18 months ago, when there was a dispute between Switzerland and the EU. The EU was going to blink first. Instead Switzerland did. The Brexit Arms were silent - perhaps they had all drunk themselves under the table.

Bigchoc Re JDD I agree with you 100%. I wish I didn't, but I do.

I've been keeping well away from all commentary on Brexit for the last month as it was beginning to affect my mental health.

Having dipped my toe back in the water, I am now more scared than ever.

On the one hand I feel almost a moral duty to keep informed, and keep banging the drum with anyone in real life who will listen. I have given up with my MP who is a Tory whip.

On the other, burying my head in the sand was preserving my sanity. But that tactic is just as bad as the "it will all be fine as 'they' won't allow anything so bad to happen" brigade.

Searching for a non-existent happy medium.

I have started a veg patch though, little help that that will be in worst case scenario.

Thing is...
During the war if you got a bad Infection - you died
If you were diabetic - you died
If you had an asthma attack- you died
All the meds to cure/manage the above were developed post 1945 afaik??
Are brexiters really saying they would be happy to go back to those days?
And what about the childhood vaccination programme??
You know...to prevent cjildhood deaths?
I would urge all of you to get your flu jab this Sept!

....amd we are already short of many meds be side 2 UK labs have had their licence revoked...

have given up with my MP who is a Tory whip.

Mine is a Tory anti EU obsessive too.
I have taken the view that it's worthwhile writing emails to other MPs. Their team won't have time to check that you aren't in their constituency. The volume of emails will just be reported to the MP and that must carry some weight.

Key MPs to target are set out below...They need to encourage others to support Tom Brake's amendment 19a on a people's vote. I'm not a fan of any more referenda. But supporting this amendment is a possible way of putting the brakes on - forgive the pun.

Anna Soubry (Conservative), Broxtowe.
Email: [email protected]
Tweet: @anna_soubry

Chuka Umunna (Labour), Streatham.
Email: [email protected]
Tweet: @chukaumunna

Hywel Williams (Plaid), Arfon.
Email: [email protected]
Tweet: @hywelplaidcymru

Owen Smith (Labour), Pontypridd.
Email: [email protected]
Tweet: @owensmith_mp

Joanna Cherry (SNP), Edinburgh South West.
Email: [email protected]
Tweet: @joannaccherry

It always seems a shame to me that North is so bloody rude to everyone. I am sure he could have more influence if he engaged a bit more positively with the world. And as for those creeps BTL talking about the "Dear Doctor"......

I'm going to make a prediction about Daily Mail headlines if all this comes to pass. They will still be drumming up hatred against foreigners and the EU (and readers will lap it up) and well have a 'We will fight them on the beaches' quoting Churchill 'and we will never surrender '.

Headlines.

I think the Norths ( and I mostly mean Pete as I know more about him) have been having some kinds of mental breakdown in public.

I'm not sure the brexiters would be that bothered if people died. It's some kind of survival of the fittest lean society that they are looking for. I think they think Singapore is that but conveniently overlook the fact that they have high social housing and are educationally and socially/culturally different. Singapore often import immigrants to creative senior roles (and these are often scientific roles). And they are moving away from what got them there.

I think Richard North does brilliant detail and has a huge knowledge of systems and legislation, but I am not convinced that he understands people very well. I certainly don't think he shows many signs of understanding politics so I am not too convinced about his judgements in that arena.

Big Choc, I am aware of that but I still think there is but to all this.

Perhaps optimistically.

Remember some Brexiteers believe in the concept of 'unilateral continuity' and the EU are aware of that.

They HAVE to let us fail if need be.

But failing could fall in line with DH's theory of a reprieve after the 11th hour due to public pressure.

Its not a prospect I relish and I hope sanity steps up long before that. But that's where we are.