Westminstenders: Don't Panic!

[RedToothBrush]

It's official

Brexit is like an episode of Dads Army with the government, being Captain Mainwaring's trusty band of elite forces doing battle against the evil Mr Barnier.

Yesterday Parliament gave back control to the executive as it surrendered parliamentary sovereignty to Janus faced May. Grieve, it has to be said, truly did look like a broken man as he gave his speech in the commons. Not that we should have too much sympathy. After all he did just put party before country.

So where are we now? The ERG are happy. They have successfully bullied enough until everyone else gave up and folded. They now have no incentive to compromise, as they know that no one can stand up to them. They want no deal, and it's no deal they will force.

The EU are thoroughly fed up and it's difficult to see them do anything but cut us loose saying Brexit means Brexit, this is what you wanted. They have stepped up planning for no deal and their plans were already much more advanced than ours.

We go into the next round of talks with a solution to the Irish Border looking further away than ever. Not helped by the fact that brexit nationalism is restricted to England alone, with many being happy to let NI be sunk into the Irish sea and the favour the rebuilding of Hadrian's wall in order to keep out the foreigners.

It's hard to resist simply sitting down wailing "we doomed". But try to resist and keep saying, you are against this crap. If only so history books don't just say we all agreed to this clusterfuck.

Here have a fluffy bunny to help comfort you.

Nah, trolling Brexiteers is too close to shooting fish in a barrel. It also leaves you exhausted, as you have to counter the astonishing weight of ignorance with every comment. Especially as even when you do provide the facts, and they are seemingly accepted, the moment you pop off for a day they are all spouting the exact same bollocks again.

Even now, for example, Brexiteers will still wibble on about how the "EU forced us to ...", despite it being pointed out daily for a year that it was in actual fact the UK which "..."

Of course, it's entirely possible that Brexiteers have been trolling remainers by posting increasingly apocalyptic visions, and laughing as some people take them seriously . You decide. We're in the future now, and it ain't like Kansas.

Seriously worrying, if true, story

I bet if it had been a pro-Brexit story, he wouldn't have questioned it's veracity.

See, I could have done media studies too.

All the leave voting, brexit supporting MPs suddenly realising that their Twitter feeds are going to switch from thank you for voting for democracy/brexit cheerleaders to why the fuck have you trashed our economy.

I've been reading some of the Twitter responses from Leavers to the Airbus news.

Dear. God.

Interestingly the leave supporting person I know who went to uni with Boris has tweeted how rubbish this government is and devoid of coherent leadership.

George Freeman and others of his ilk will still find ways to believe to their core that it is the EU's fault that businesses leave the UK and/or choose not to invest here.

#dontheyknowwhoweare
#theyneedusmorethanweneedthem

And of course the US is pleased that the UK is burning its bridges with the EU. Chlorinated chickens, fracking and a privatised NHS anyone?

#weneedthemmorethantheyneedus
#theUSwillhavetheUKoverabarrell

Red Box describing 2 politicians with different ways of holding to their principles:

" So now we know.
When Boris Johnson said, "I will lie down in front of those bulldozers and stop the construction of that third runway",
what he meant was:
"I will lie low and board plane to literally anywhere while other people vote against the construction of that third runway."
…
Greg Hands, a longstanding critic of a third runway, quit yesterday as an international trade minister to honour the pledge he made to his constituents
in Chelsea and Fulham who live under the flight path to vote against the plan.

This appeared to put Johnson in a bit of an awkward position:
if a principled opponent of Heathrow was quitting their frontbench job after a decade, surely he would stick to his guns and do the same.

Er no.
By some terrible, unfortunate coincidence he is going to be out of the country on Monday.
At first glance it looked as though he might be detained at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, until journalists pointed out that this would finish late afternoon, giving him plenty of time to get back for a 10pm vote. < oops >

So now he is going somewhere else.
As yet unidentified.
Kept secret for "security reasons", < natch >
presumably to stop angry opponents of Heathrow turning up and asking awkward questions about the whereabouts of his backbone.

< BUT note which of the 2 politicians continues in govt to decide our future >

If we needed more capacity at Heathrow, will we still do so post-Brexit ?

A Brexit recession will of course be the fault of those elite treacherous businesses leaving the UK
…
Leavers will not think why businesses left

Leavers will not remember we kept warning this would happen

The extra runway at Heathrow could come in useful as a giant lorry park

Added benefit of not being a noise nuisance

Pretty That should go in a govt Brexit suggestion box

The time will come when they can't blame the EU. However, they will still try, because the Tories are still blaming the last Labour Government but they have had 3 elections since then to sort things out.

Leavers won't remember because they are busy rewriting the script - they are telling us that they knew it would be difficult. Strangely enough, they didn't say that before.

Brexiters can copy Melanie Trump's jacket, that she wore on a visit to a child migrant detentiion centre

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44570688

Mrs Trump was spotted in the coat, which featured graffiti writing on the back with the words "I really don't care do u?", as she boarded a plane.

To be fair(ish) to George Freeman, he was actually a vocal Remainer before the referendum, but in a true blue Tory seat in rural Norfolk where all the turkeys voted for Christmas... so he feels he has to represent them now.

{We're in the future now, and it ain't like Kansas}.
Is Kansas one of the areas known collectively as the dust bowl?

Imo, the JLR move recently was part of the "managed disinvestment" to which I referred earlier,
in which businesses move out in stages, so they stay under the radar and don't get any flak from the Brexit media

JLR was the classic way to avoid criticism:
move^ part of their operations^ abroad, say that they will be investing in the UK for a new platform in the future … but that future time can be delayed until JLR are either sure it makes sense, or decide it doesn't
all the while quietly continuing the drawdown of Uk operations.

David Allen Green Retweeted George Freeman MP
"I didn't realise businesses would prepare for 'no deal'," sobs MP who voted for amendment providing that government could keep 'no deal' as an option.

Are your MPs really that stupid???

I’m starting to wonder if there shouldn’t be some sort of test before becoming an MP. One on intelligence and one on having some sort of backbone. Fgs

Good point BigChoc
At the moment viable electric cars are not too dissimilar to unicorns and even if they were available today, the rest of the infrastructure (huge investment in charging points for example) just isn't there.
Toyota promising continued investment in the Auris is not necessarily promising anything else and as the line is set up will continue for a while. The Japanese will only stay if their investment actually pays.

In a word, Tambien , yes

And lacking in backbone

With a few honourable exceptions amongst the Conservatives and the so called Opposition.

I exempt the LibDems, the SNP and the Green from that statement.

....sorry, meant to include Plaid Cymru amongst the exceptions.

Would anyone agree with me that the concept of the Gov packing up for 'summer recess' is a massive dereliction of duty considering the total balls up they have made?
Sort of 'You are all in it but we are off on holiday' sort of expression.

54321go

Yes, it seems absolutely mental. Though very European, ironically.

As suggested upthread, the beauty of the current situation is you can cut swatches of costs due to Brexit, knowing that Brexiteers will blame anything but Brexit. Even as they collect their P45s.

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/22/ukgov_kicking_pac_stem_skills_report/

The UK government doesn't know what science and tech skills the economy needs or how Brexit will affect firms' ability to recruit staff, MPs have warned.

(contd)

At least one firm that I do business with made a significant move from Scotland to England prior to the Indyref. Quite nakedly in case the result was yes - they admitted in their blurb (it involved setting up an English company and transferring business to that).

Of course, the No result didn't see a reversal of that, although I suspect they are regretting that now. That said, they still have two entities, one in Scotland, one in England, so it might prove serendipitous in the end.