Westminstenders: Rebel or Reveal

[RedToothBrush]

The EU Withdrawal Bill made it through the Commons. Though May did not manage it unscathed.

In an attempt to divide and conquer the Rebels, May might have damaged trust. We shall find out. The Grieve Amendment faces the Lords. We also will see if the Lords will back down on their amendments or apply some new ones for the Commons to deal with in Parliamentary Ping Pong.

Aaron Banks has been exposed as being pally with the Russian Embassy in a plot twist that absolutely everyone saw coming.

Meanwhile the EU thinks we have already run out of time and is preparing options to extend talks beyond the a50 deadline. These include having MEPs for the 2019 - 2024 session.

There is also growing talk around Europe that freedom of movement in its current form is unsustainable. Ironically we might see the EU adopt something akin to Cameron's pre-referendum proposals as the EU reforms.

Theresa May has also announced - at a moment when she is looking particularly weak - a new tax for the NHS, cunningly disguised in spin as 'the Brexit dividend'. Of course shareholders don't always get dividends and at times of poor economic performance instead might be asked to stump up extra capital...Expect to see buses with £350 million of the side just in time for the next general election cycle.

And so the Zombie PM limbers on towards the end of the summer session and the relative safety of the summer holidays. More drama, cringing and disbelief guaranteed before we get there.

Dh and I, along with my parents, marched against the Iraq War #notinmyname

I know it didn't change anything, but as someone has already said, at least we could feel we had tried to make our protest heard in a visual and practical way. The Government couldn't claim that the country was behind them.

I think that's the point of marching. #notinourname

Warnings, impact studies, experts … are all dismissed as Project Fear

Project Reality couldn't be ignored:
Rationing, riots, plummeting pound, IMF …

Will the last business to leave the country pleas turn out the lights ? No need

Project Fear ==> Project Near ==> Project Here ==> Project Reality

The bottom line is: Parliament has to listen to the people. If this government is shaky and seriously fear an imminent election, then they should be gauging public opinion closely.

I was going to use that line but decided I would be slated as it's Mumsnet!
I agree with not giving up though.

Th government did claim the country was behind the war though, and they’re doing the same now. A million people marched, and were ignored.

I can say “not in my name” from my bed, from a crowd of marchers, from a minaret, in sky writing. If the MPs aren’t listening now, they won’t be listening on Saturday. We’ve seen today how low the government will stoop to see this thing through. Ignoring a protest is nothing to them.

The public doesn't yet believe the govt will let anything terrible happen

If there was an election tomorrow, we’d be in exactly the same position on Friday as we’re in now.

Corbyn and Momentum want brexit, and labour can’t win an election anyway, it’d be another hung parliament.

So what has the government to fear from the protests?

I’d like to say I’m depressed about today, but I think I’d lost hope of sanity prevailing, long ago.

My thoughts are turning more and more towards how to get my family through this. The immediate practicalities (and who knows what is actually going to happen in the weeks following Day 0) and the long term effects (assuming we haven’t collapsed Mad Max style, nevertheless we will be a smaller, poorer place with fewer opportunities).

Why march? So that in the years to come I can look my grandchildren in the face and say 'I did what I could'.

Indirectly relevant but an ex boyfriend of DD's who had a Dutch grandfather, was horrified to find that the sweet old gentleman he knew had been a Nazi sympathiser during the War. Who would want their children/grandchildren to find something like that out?

Maybe I don't feel quite so distressed and powerless because I live in Scotland and there is a faint glimmer of hope that we will be able to escape the madness - if not immediately, in the medium term.

That's why threads like this are so important - to keep people in the know. There are loads of posters and lurkers on here, and so much great expertise and information-sharing. It's great to see new posters who've been lurking for a long time. It makes you realise the potential reach of Westministenders. I feel acutely aware if what's going on, due to following this. I also know lots of folk who are acutely unaware. The word needs to be spread.

Peregrina what a disgusting comparison.

Recognising the march will achieve absolutely nothing is not the same as supporting Brexit.

I am telling anyone who will listen that Brexit will be a disaster - no-one is listening, at any level. That’s why it’ll happen, precisely because the public believes that the government will not let anything bad happen. It’s like trying to imagine death - impossible. They won’t believe it until it happens. The vast majority of people are completely oblivious to what has been going on in the past few weeks. Completely oblivious.

I’ll ask again - who do you think will listen to the protest, given that there is no effective opposition to Brexit in parliament? The government has absolutely nothing to lose by ignoring any and all protests.

I'm marching on Saturday too. For the same reasons - I want to be able to look my children and grandchildren in the face and tell them mum/gran did something, she didn't go quietly or just sat in a corner bitterly moaning. Its not much, but it is something.

Well done to Ken Clarke, Anna Soubry, Antoinette Sandbach, Heidi Allen, Sarah Wollaston and Phillip Lee who had the courage of their convictions. I would expect this to be the last Parliament for Ken Clarke, so that's one less to fight for Parliamentary democracy.

I could see Ireland reuniting and Scotland becoming Independent, which I don't think is what Cameron or May want as their legacies.

Andshe Regardless of whether Labour would stop Brexit (I suppose they wouldn't) the Tories wouldn't want them to win an election.

Time has run out, yes.

All any Brexiteer has to do in response to concerns about what will happen is invoke Project Fear. “Don’t worry everyone, the Remoaners are exaggerating”. And everyone, including us, wants (desperately) to believe them.

There’s no fighting that, until Project Fear actually becomes reality. Even then, the Brexiteers will place the blame elsewhere.

I am trying not to catastrophise, but it’s hard not to. Not just because of Brexit and the appaling standard of most of our MPs at the momemt, from all parties. But also because of the rise of Trump, Putin, authoritarianism in Turkey, Hungary and Italy now.

This is very worrying. But, there is no majority for a hard Brexit in parliament and things really can change very quickly. We are obsessed with this but most people really don’t care. It hasn’t hit them hard enough but it could, and quickly if businesses really did begin to move out. There have been threats and warnings but nothing major enough to cause a real backlash. This could begin to happen fast.

Hester Labour won’t win an election, so they have nothing to worry about there. Labour should have an open goal with this government, but they aren’t polling anywhere close to winning numbers. That’s insanely bad under the circumstances.

Nazis won by silence and And those who just let it happen.
I presume you don't remember the modest poll tax victory either.

To keep making the point, not in my name
Amen
Our fore mothers, particularly those who were Irish, black and Jewish went through hell for us to have had the peace and human rights we had thus far enjoyed.

I need to honour them and our kids by fighting back.

Not in my name

Never in my name

woman

✊

Yes, I’ll be there on Saturday too. Solidarity is important. I’m a just hanging on labour member and in despair right now. I genuinely find it difficult to know what they are playing at.

I would expect another hung Parliament. If the Brexit debacle achieves anything, I would hope a reformed voting system will come out of it.

I won't get any satisfaction saying I told you so when Project Fear becomes a reality.

What would make people sit up and take notice though? The end of cheap flights so putting the kibosh on those Spanish and Greek holidays? Oh but they need us! I am not so sure - Eastern Europe has become more prosperous, I am quite sure there are plenty of Poles and Estonians who would welcome a holiday in the sun to take up the slack when the drunken English disappear.