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.

Irish Times today, with an article (yet again) that sets out the outstanding issues far better than any British newspaper: [[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/semantic-game-of-brexit-now-focused-on-the-meaning-of-the-word-meaningful-1.3533571?mode=amp]

"... the Irish Border and everyone’s commitment to its absence requires either the North to effectively remain in the EU or the whole of the UK to stay aligned with most or all of the single market. This simple truth got somewhat lost: the audience is easily distracted. Both the main UK political parties are in a race downwards into a seemingly bottomless political pit."

"...In an interesting take on how the DUP might be persuaded to see things differently, if not blink, UCD’s Karl Whelan this week pointed out that the UK government’s proposals actually mean moving the Border to the North’s ports (there are far fewer of them than border crossings). At those ports a customs red and green channel system would operate, giving rise to the possibility that Northern Irish firms would be given the massive economic opportunity of being both fully inside the UK and the single market. That idea is worth watching."

"Perhaps the EU backs down and allows single market access or membership while permitting the end of free movement. If there is any capacity left to fudge even more, this is where to look. There are plenty of routes whereby the British could have slowed immigration from the EU. That they never availed of them is a mystery. Perhaps they will now start, calling it ‘an end to free movement’. The EU will, by contrast, just observe the new application of old rules and be happy that the four freedoms of the single market are still being honoured."

"...I don’t see how any of this is reconcilable before next March... With no agreement - withdrawal or otherwise - the UK simply leaves the EU in 2019 without so much as a standstill arrangement. The hard Brexiteers are no longer concealing this as their key, or only, objective. That this outcome is catastrophic for all concerned, not least Ireland, goes without saying.
...They are just running the clock down. All they have to do is to block - anything and everything - for another 9 1/2 month’s. By contrast, Theresa May has to keep spinning plates: promising one thing to the hardliners, the opposite to her rebels. She has to keep this up while negotiating a deal that delivers, at least, the 2 year transition period, post March 2019. A few analysts are quietly betting that transition may become permanent. That’s the soft Brexit wager. Expect the ultras to pull out all the stops to prevent precisely this outcome."

Another try with link www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/semantic-game-of-brexit-now-focused-on-the-meaning-of-the-word-meaningful-1.3533571?mode=amp

Lots of comments today on how immigration is supposedly leading to support for far right populist parties. However, what the data actually show is that support for populist parties is greatest in areas with the lowest levels of immigration. It’s not immigration that drives populism, it’s the imagined (not real) fear of immigrants in places that have very few of them, but where there is also very real economic deprivation, and hence the need for a scapegoat.

However, what the data actually show is that support for populist parties is greatest in areas with the lowest levels of immigration. It’s not immigration that drives populism, it’s the imagined (not real) fear of immigrants in places that have very few of them, but where there is also very real economic deprivation, and hence the need for a scapegoat.

Such a typical bien-pensant view. Is it really inconceivable that low-immigration areas can compare their situation with that of high-immigration areas and decide "We'd like to keep things as they are, thanks?" And in a democracy, people have the right to decide for themselves what their "real" fears are.

"We'd like to keep things as they are, thanks?"

No, it suggests to me that the real problem is economic deprivation, and the exploitation of it by the far right. People can democratically vote themselves into greater poverty (as with the Brexit vote), and it will reduce immigration (immigrants tend to stay away from peripheral deprived places), but won’t stop the rise of the far right. Lots of historical examples of this too.

Indeed miss. Fear is weaponised by those far right parties too. They know it. They admit it. A tiny drop of fear is worth more than anything factual.

Place mat king

So much moral high ground on this thread from so many trying to overturn a democratic vote result they don’t like

Who’s trying to overturn a result? I fully accept the referendum result. I think it’s horrendously damaging for the UK, but here we are. Let us hope for the least damaging form of Brexit.

pretty that looks really good. Shame about the HFLC thing though.

Can't think of anything to use up the egg yolks without going for a lot of desserts though, which won't help you.
Sugar free meringue you say? Sounds amazing.

Sorry for the random flip-flopping of names. Namechange didn't take on mobile.

Given the studies have shown that on balance, immigrants make a positive contribution to the economy - then by voting to reduce immigration, then people in areas which are deprived have voted to ensure less money available to help them

Which is indeed their prerogative - but I'm pretty confident that they didn't intend that (viz both Cornwall and Wales' panic at the prospect of losing European funding and pleading WM to ensure that it will be replaced - but the government won't have any money to do so, given our reduced growth, reduced tax intake, reduced Foreign Direct Investment and all the extra money that May has promised the NHS and those are just the consequences of preparing for Brexit )

I live in an area with a large amount of immigration (one local primary has 98% of its pupils with English as an Additional Language, the other - our catchment - consists of 60% ethnic "minorities"). Despite - or more probably because of - that, we voted well over 70% in favour of remaining in the EU.

Hey when Labour was in power and the conservatives were having a go at them because they thought their policies weren’t any good, was it also the Conservatives trying to overturn a democratic vote they didn’t like??

In a democracy, it is NORMAL for people who don’t agree with the government policies to say so. It’s normal to to air those views wo go;g against democracy.
Stoping people from expressing any other POV that isn’t the one of the government is called a dictature.

Miss moon

I don’t remember ticking a box marked ‘least damaging version of brexit’ on my ballot paper

It was a binary choice : in or out

There are no ‘versions’

Who’s trying to overturn a result? I fully accept the referendum result.

Whispers.. I'd quite like to overturn it actually, or at least make it a truly reflective of what the whole majority really thinks.

If we'd already adopted a different democratic process e.g. that of Australia (where voting is compulsory) the polls prove the result would have been to Remain, and would still be Remain two years later.

Alternatively if Cameron had done a huge YouGov survey about everything, education, benefits, NHS, immigration etc to show his divided party the country's views, instead of a single issue referendum, then the result would have been different too.

Old link to substantiate non democratic aspects of the referendum ... blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2016/10/24/brexit-is-not-the-will-of-the-british-people-it-never-has-been/

Ah - a full house on remainer propaganda - the referendum wasnt democratic enough...

We could always just keep voting until you get your way? I wouldn’t be so sure you would win even if the vote was rerun

prettybird you can make pasta with egg yolks, although that isn’t going to help you much if you’re low carbing.

Would there be any mileage in Northern Ireland being united with Eire? NI voted remain (on balance) so apart from some would this be feasible? Westminster is happy to rip up treaties as it stands, or at least frustrate them into obscurity.
Not wishing to undermine the importance of NI but 'rebranding' and making it either a part of Eire or a separate state within the EU. With the sheer cost and complexity of the UK leaving it would be relatively small change to establish NI as a new identity. Surely the possibility of living peaceably and comfortable outweighs the name you give to the land you are standing on?
I am frankly astonished that the other EU countries have put up with the gross incompetence of the UK government and can't imagine them putting up with it any longer than March next year.
@heydugg. Stop being so pathetic and come up with a list of 5 ways (or as many as you can manage) that the UK will REALLY benefit from leaving the EU, bearing in mind that Immigration, NHS spending and Sovereignty are not EU issues and never were.
Failing that, which issues did you vote for? Which bits of the vote have you actually 'won'?
For starters, you have voted to pay more for almost everything. Not a 'plus' in my book but there, you have it.
Mrs May has announced some extra spending on the NHS. She obviously has a large sofa as she has only just found this money since Mr Cameron left. (Hint, taxes will be going up).
Over to you now.

Hey look if the referendum has been done well and everyone knew exactly what they were voting for p, why are you so worried about a new referendum? I mean surely it should give the same result because that’s the will of the people and the governemnet is only doing what the population in the U.K. wants. No??

As far as I’m concerned, the only reason Leavers are rejecting the idea of a second referendum so strongly and are very angry about it is because they are very fearful they would loose. Otherwise, why not just going with the flow and confirming again that the U.K. does want to Leave??

lonely actually I would love to see voting to be made compulsory, even if it means people voting blank because they not know what to do/are undecided/don’t like any of the options.
I’d also love to see, esp in a referendum, the count of the blank/nul votes been taken into account because after all, nothing is saying that the ‘will of the people’ was to either in or out of the EU. It might have been about changing our relationhsip with the EU, creating something new or simply actually applying ALL the rules the EU allows us to use (see all the stuff about checks you can do re the FOM, not selling all our fishing rights and so on)

From Number 10 twitter channel:
Its the with us as a country contributing a bit more that gives away where the increase is coming from. I like the use of bolding though so people who only read headlines don't look at the finer detail.

Thanks for yet another new thread, red

Thanks for another thread red

Thanks for the new thread, Red. Much appreciated as ever.

Still trying to catch up with the last thread, but placemarking...

OhLook
So the gov are creating MORE mess before clearing up the current mess.
Brilliant move.
The figures on the picture, are they masked so we can't see them leaving?