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.

Pretty strong words from Dominic Grieve:

“I can’t save the government from getting into a situation where parliament might disagree with it.

“The alternative is that we have all got to sign up to a slavery clause now saying whatever the government does, when it comes to January, however potentially catastrophic it might be for my constituents, and my country, I’m signing in blood now that I will follow over the edge of the cliff. And that, I can tell you, I am not prepared to do.”

Good for him...

Tough reading for our irregular visitors.

Another weird thing that makes zero sense, but they avoid referencing at all costs:

• their wet dream leader, Trump, is starting a trade war because he doesn't want the rest of the world to play by US rules in exchange for US military protection. He hates NATO and wants to get rid of it.

• but our Brexit fever-dreamers think that the EU having its own army is bad

So in other words, the entire "hard Brexit" approach to defense makes no sense at all. Funny how they don't charge on here and give us that soundbite anymore, isn't it?

Grieve also on SP:
"Fundamentally brexit is inherently risky; to our economy; international relations and security........We could collapse the government."

May's claim of 'Brexit dividend' for NHS dismissed as 'tosh

A Conservative MP says the term "treats the public as fools", as the PM's pledge of more money for the NHS comes under scrutiny
news.sky.com/story/mays-claim-of-brexit-dividend-for-nhs-dismissed-as-tosh-11407561

In the absence of an opposition, looks like the tories will do the job for labour.

The Tories really are the value for money party, supplying Government and Opposition on a 2-for-1 basis!

DG The wealthy spivs created the problems … but they aren't going to suffer the consequences:

• Redwood telling his investors to get their money out of the UK
• JRM's investment firm opening up in Dublin
• Lawson applying for indefinite leave to remain in his luxury French home …

If there is no deal and the UK has shortages, rationing, power cuts, mass unemployment, grounded planes …

• as longterm (and rightwing) Leavers Richard North & Christopher Booker keep warning -

the spivs will have long decamped, taking their arse & assets abroad

From there, they are hoping to buy up bankrupt British businesses and chunks of the NHS at fire-sale prices
That's what those advocating no deal are enabling.

Tory leadership is also guilty of treason, according to one party leader. And I would agree.

Yup, 2 Tory politicians in a room = 3 conflicting views !
2 Labour politicians = waiting to copy the Tory ones

< has anyone else found autocorrect keeps trying to change "Tory politicians" to "Tory pelicans" >

Well, that makes sense. Some of the most fervent anti-Brexiters I know are typical Conservative voters. They think Brexit is "un-Conservative": bad for business, bad for national security, bad for law and order, bad for the Union.

It's quite something for a policy to be so bad it brings progressives and conservatives together.

DG The wealthy spivs created the problems … but they aren't going to suffer the consequences

I wonder if that's what the French nobility thought ?

Alexei Sayle wrote a wonderful short story based on the notion that an aging population is fertile recruiting grounds for hitmen, After all, what's an 80 year old lady got to fear from prison.

And guaranteeing this post gets picked up (hello Echelon !) - maybe we should be seeing heads on spikes ?

Some of the most fervent anti-Brexiters I know are typical Conservative voters.

you mean conservative voters ?

@Bigchoc, no but I am sure DRG can think of a song about it!
Unless I have missed it has ANYONE thought of any REAL good ideas why the UK should leave, if you remove the immigration, Sovereignty and the old £350M on a bus twaddle?
Go on, humour us give us one tincy wincy good reason.

Also, isn't it funny that all the discussions over the EEC, talk about it changing since 1975, with no mention of the fact that the Tory party has also changed since 1975. And that Brexit is more a reflection of the latter than the former ?

DRG can think of a song about it!

Les Boys do cabaret ...
or
Money for Nothing ...

Doctor, lawyer, beggarman, thief
Philly Joe remarkable looks on in disbelief
If you want a taste of madness you'll have to wait in line
You'll probably see someone you know on Heartattack and Vine

HeyDugee you have to be given a voucher to use a food bank. I can just go to one if I don’t feel like doing the shop at tesco. They’re not handing out food to just anyone who rocks up.
www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/how-foodbanks-work/

Been out all day but can I suggest uses for egg yolks: Creme brûlée, or filling for a lemon tart, or quiche Loraine?

Sorry should be I can’t go to one! Typing while cooking dinner

Food banks:

You have to be referred by an agency.

In my town that's the Drs, surestart centre and volunteer centre.

All referrals/vouchers are scanned into a database to prevent fraudulent claims. This hardly ever happens. People using foodbanks are desperate. In the 8 years our main branch has been running there have been 2 instances of a person using a voucher twice on one week.

Not much value to selling on crisis food tbh

The food parcels are basic. It's a 3 day parcel to get a service user through a crisis.

It's not fancy stuff.

It's uht milk, Juice, pasta, sauce, beans, soup, cereal, tea, coffee.

It's not a fortnums hamper as some right wingers would have you believe...

Pineapple sunrise

Re your comments on defense. Firstly, I thought the eu was a simple trading bloc with no pretensions for its own supranational institutions (like an army?).

The truth is that European countries under invest in defence and have done so for years - preferring instead to shelter beneath the military might of the USA via nato. Now if I was an American taxpayer I would feel pretty pissed off at bankrolling the defence of first world European nations. That is the American issue with nato - you can vilify trump but he has a point. Britain remains, like France, one of the few euro nations to (largely) pull its weight in this respect.

So the eu cannot afford or readily field its own armed forces, even though it would presumably dearly love to.

But this is all academic of course because, as you all keep telling me, Britain hasn’t and won’t lose any sovereignty... ever..

Oh except for control of its own armed forces in years to come. Oh and the judiciary. Oh and immigration policy. Oh and trade policy.

@TheElement
Careful you might 'out' yourself as Remainer quoting that 'foreign' food!

54321 Eh, it’s too late for me, there’s no disguising my traitorous negative-thinking anti-democratic soulless Remainy ways

Germany had it's hands slapped after that 'spat' '39-45' so it does not have an army in the same sense as other countries although there was some deal going on as the British Army used to train in Germany.
With the new improved British army 'going it alone' it will have the resources to invade the Isle of Man.
They could send some ships to the Falklands but those 'furriners' over there will probably be naughty and sink them. With all the UK money being put into a Trident replacement and Aircraft carries (with US made planes we won't be able to pay for) we could have a damn fine health service and almost banish poverty.

54321

As with other issues you expose your ignorance

F35 joint strike fighters operation from our two aircraft carriers will be uk owned. Yes the USA has produced them but military aviation is often acquired by sharing r&d etc between partner nations. Nonetheless we have paid for it.

You are correct that Germany is unwilling and unable to field a potent armed forces due to ww2 ‘issues’ ... but what about the many other nations in the eu not constrained in the same manner but instead willing take the (largely us funded) nato umbrella.

There are no nations in the Falkland area (notably Argentina) able to put anything to sea that can compete with current uk warships and aircraft.

You are waxing lyrical about this and other subjects about which you know little

No Trump doesn't have a point - the Americans have used NATO to promote the Cold War. It's highly debatable whether there would have been one if they hadn't done so.

I don't know whether Trump is bright enough to realise that America is rapidly losing out to China in terms of world leadership.

If we had been in an EU army we probably would never have invaded Iraq. Just putting that out there.

Not that I think there will be an EU army, where member states had no ability to take unilateral action.

Trump has more in common with fascist Putin than with most European leaders, including Theresa May.
He is an aberration and the next President will probably revert to type, but he runs US policy to help his own business empire

However, over the last several presidencies, US interests have developed more in Latin America, the Middle & Far East, China
European countries need to acknowledge this, get together and organise their own defence

Or accept the price of having to support US wars in these other countries with our own soldiers.
Remember the fury when other European countries refused to join the invasion of Iraq - they were right about no WMDs.
So many British lives (& Iraqi ones) wasted pointlessly.
The US will feel ever more entitled and demand ever more, to keep its troops in Europe

Once the communist USSR collapsed, the US reason for "defending Europe" went with it - and also the main reason we needed protection.

The Russian economy was looted by plutocrats in the 1990s and has been run by Putin's kleptocracy ever since.
It is not remotely the military threat of the old USSR (hence why Russia now fights its battles on the internet, much cheaper)

Russian defence spending in 2017 was $61bn, 20% lower than in 2017

• at nearly $14 billion, this was the largest absolute decrease of any country in the world.

This is despite all Putin’s military bluster, because he & his oligarch chums continue to loot & worsen Russia’s wrecked economy
(which is now about the size of the economy of the far smaller Hungary, which is far from rich)

In contrast, the 29 NATO members spent $900 billion, which is 52% of the world total defence spend

Of this, the US spends $610 billion, although the vast majority is now not in Europe, but for the US interests in the RoW.

https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2018/global-military-spending-remains-high-17-trillion

The UK, France Germany and Italy spend in total $163bn.
The other European countries would add to this

Currently Russia could mobilise an armoured force of at most 150k personnnel to modern standards.
To carry out a successful attack, an army needs an absolute minimum of 3:1 force advantage, ideally 5:1
So at best they could successfully overcome a 50k force

Instead, the UK, France, Germany and Italy can mobilise nearly 250k with better capabilities, training and logistics.