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.

Just watched the BBC piece about white farmers returning to land in Zimbabwe. The comment that they recognise that working together is the best approach.

When it increasingly looks like you've screwed up your own country's future, the only way to justify it
- including to yourself - is to claim that the other countries will collapse soon too.

Misery loves company and all that.

Another EU Notice to Stakeholders:
Withdrawal of recognition for Professional Qualifications

Could be another bombshell for 100,000s of people

https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/30225/attachments/1/translations/en/renditions/native

"EU-27 nationals holding UK professional qualifications obtained before the withdrawal date
should consult the relevant national authorities to assess whether it is advisable to obtain, before the withdrawal date,
the recognition of those UK professional qualifications in an EU-27 Member State."

This looks aimed at EU citizens who either grew up in the UK, or chose to go uni etc in the Uk.
What if they want to / have to return to the country of which they are a citizen / (not ?) home ?

This could hammer UK universities income from international students,
if UK qualifications are no longer automatically recognised in the EU.
AND
It applies to most professional qualifications too.
So, it could add more complications for some UK expats working in the EU, or hoping to do so in future.

List of professions affected:
http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/regprof/index.cfm?action=professions&quid=1&mode=asc&maxRows=*#top

^Learndirect faces collapse after failing to suppress Ofsted report
Private equity owners extracted millions from UK’s largest adult training provide^r

www.ft.com/content/3a85ac1c-7dd9-11e7-9108-edda0bcbc928?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754ec6

What's the difference between Russian and English gangster capitalism which thieves state funding? Their alphabets. (cyrillic is easier)

Can you C&P woman11017? There's one of them pesky pay walls...

Google the exact title and you'll be able to view the article gnome

not admitting how I know this

Tbh what’s coming out atm is so worrying about the state of the country that in itself, it would be enough to make a government shake.
It’s Greenfell, Learndirect, Carillion, train companies, the NHS etc etc
So many situation where rampant capitalism has been allowed to develop wo any regards for people/customers.

The more it goes, the more it looks like Trump and Brexit are the same. Only there to attract the population attention (Chomsky talks about Trump being a con man there only to attract attention whilst others do all the dirty work in the background but wo being disturbed because we are so focused on yet another crazy idea. Brexit feels very much the same tbh) so that other forces can be at work.

What is the end game is a good question. It could be plain and simple ‘capitalism’ or rather theft from a few of the richest people.
It could be that it’s forces such as Russia would benefit strongly from the unrest that will result from that. Imagine a world where the US is in full overwhelm/martial law due to major unrest?
And then the U.K. following. So close to the EU with all the issues coming with it. Could it spread?

Maybe TM is actually right in saying that the one thing we should focus on is cyber warfare.

thank you prettybird that New Statesman has a paywall now, but understandable.

Professional qualifications:

I recall a time before we belonged to the EU when a Dutch friend who had years of nursing and midwifery experience, had to study them all again in the UK to be able to practice. She did so, but it wouldn't be an option for everyone.

We want to go back to that do we?

These are all details which should have been listed by Cameron as things which would need attention before he even thought of a Referendum.

Greece 'turning a page' as eurozone agrees deal to end financial crisis

Athens hails agreement to give country access to markets in August after final bailout

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/22/eurozone-greece-financial-crisis-deal

This is no way is ideal, but it's a way through.

Striking that Greek youth unemployment is 43%. I wonder ours would be without exploitative zero hours jobs, bogus training courses, fake apprenticeships and extortionate 'degrees'.

We want to go back to that do we
A trapped workforce is a servile workforce.

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/22/britain_co2_shortage/

Notice how the UK is more severely impacted because of reliance on non-UK resources.

However, I have just thought of a possible endless source of gas in the UK, unfortunately this margin is not big enough ...

Just been to our town’s brexit debate with Lord Adonis vs our local mp. Our leave mp wanted to walkout of talks over the Galileo project. The audience was 80% remain and a real mix of ages including teenagers. ITV were there filming a documentary.

It’s Greenfell, Learndirect, Carillion, train companies, the NHS etc etc

I caught part of Alastair Campbell on Any Questions this evening. He made the point that there would have been no end of criticism if all this had been happening under Gordon Brown's premiership. Now I don't particularly like Campbell, but I agreed with that. Meanwhile a Brexiter was chuntering in the background, but Campbell told him he could keep on chuntering.

Good to see the FT is suggesting other companies 'show their hand'. As explained in the article, and thinking a little bit you would understand why not many businesses would have said much so far. Rival companies would not want any competitors know they were worried as it would lead to the possibility of bids for takeover etc. It also cites concerns of employees losing their nerve and considering leaving. This would of course be massively damaging to the higher skilled workforces as they would consider moving abroad.
I suppose we can look forward to GM modified McFlurries and settle down to watch 'Britains got nothing'.

@DGR, interesting use of the word 'harvested' in that report!
Psst, want any 'under the counter' Co2? I never realised it could be used as food grade or other. I presume the Co2 used for welding might not have to be quite so pure.

Just listening to Katherine Bennett from Airbus on the BBC News: I thought she was actually underplaying the risks and trying to be very diplomatic.

I noticed the "it needs to be said to anyone listening" but no one in Government is listening .

Also, the emphasis that the risk was of a "No Deal" Brexit, but for an industry that relies in JIT production processes, "as frictionless as possible" won't wash : it needs to be full CU and SM so that there are no delays at the borders.

Of course, with parliament about to go on its interminable summer recess, nowt much can be done about it.

"As frictionless as possible" sounds like another one of Theresa May's empty slogans. She needs to begin to specify what sort of delay would still be workable for the various industries who operate JIT systems. I was told that deliveries to the BMW plant in Oxford are timed for half our slots - hence seeing a lot of lorries parked on the by-pass just before the factory, awaiting their slot.

A major problem, unless there is a deal to handle all this, is that

after Brexit, the UK will be unable to certify that its products, components, sub-systems etc. satisfy the required international or customer standards

This is because UK membership of organisations enabling certification currently depends on EU membership
and there has been insufficient planning to regain these memberships

So no company will want to buy UK components or systems for use in their products outside the UK.

This will really be worrying Airbus and the entire aviation industry - one major problem that the advertised job for aviation chief (max 70k !) must handle.

Parts already certified will be OK
but aircraft are routinely serviced after every flight (with additional scheduled major overhauls) and parts are continually being replaced.
Uk components & systems will no longer be certified, so cannot be used. However, it would be a horrendous task to find absolutely exact replacements from other countries for everything.
Nuts & screws are easy enough - but still need to be specified - whereas 1000s of more complicated would need to be sourced and checked before they could become the new standard replacements.

This will also apply to cars, toasters and every other manufactured product.

This evening:
@BBCNewsnight
“Threatening to blow your foot off might well be a negotiating strategy, but it is not one that fills industry with a great deal of confidence,” argues @PauleverittADS #newsnight
twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1010277357599375361

Bit OT, but sorry, these reports from Texas chill my blood

• although our recent visitor, who was obsessed with stopping migrants and gloating at far right successes, would probably approves of Trump’s hard line:

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/6/15/17465306/children-immigrant-families-separated-breastfeeding-baby

Babies bfing literally torn away from their mother’s breast and taken to be detained elsewhere, where they will be FFed by strangers.
Mothers handcuffed if they automatically resist this.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/trump-world-1930s-children-parents-europe-migrants

Small children taken 1,000s of miles away from their parents
"There is no system in place to reunite them.
The children were not properly registered.

How can a two-year-old who speaks no English explain who she is?
Eighty years from now, perhaps, old men and women will sob as they recall the mother taken from them by uniformed agents of the US government, never to be seen again."
…
The guards telling weeping children they are forbidden from hugging each other.
And then this chilling detail, reported by Texas Monthly.

It turns out that US border guards don’t always tell parents they’re taking their children away.

“Instead, the officers say, ‘I’m going to take your child to get bathed.’
The child goes off,
and in a half-hour, 20 minutes, the parent inquires, ‘Where is my five-year-old?’ ‘Where’s my seven-year-old?’ ‘This is a long bath.’

And [the officer says], ‘You won’t be seeing your child again.’”

It’s not the same as telling Jews about to die they are merely taking a shower, but in the use of deception the echo is loud.

Airbus SE’s Chinese arm is clamoring for high-value work building wings currently made in the U.K. as Brexit threatens to blunt the country’s competitive edge, according to the group’s top British executive

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/airbus-u-k-warns-of-brexit-risk-as-china-covets-wing-business

While the design and manufacture of Airbus wings represents one of the “crown jewels” of U.K. aerospace, every part is exported into the European Union and would be affected by any additional border friction and customs costs, Airbus U.K. Senior Vice President Katherine Bennett told British lawmakers Tuesday.

“We do build wings in China now, and believe you me they’re knocking at the door as a result of the situation that we’re in in this country,” Bennett said in front of Parliament’s business, energy and industrial strategy committee. Other Airbus divisions would “dearly love” the contracts, she said

I know Hamburg are also clamouring to build the wings - they also have the expertise
So, Airbus could use wings from their China subsidiary after Brexit, but possibly build up European capacity in Hamburg or Toulouse

Airbus could also build up capability in an E27 country - the EU tends to invest for the future, rather than short-termism as in the UK

You can do a B.Eng in aeronautical engineering in three Irish third level institutions, or a B.Eng in aeronautical systems in one of those three.

Just saying...

www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-behavioural-economics-leave-remain-voters-a8411391.html

There is evidence that people routinely gamble to avoid guaranteed losses, while playing safe with guaranteed gains. Faced with a certain loss from the 'soft' option, those (the majority) who voted for Brexit will inevitably be drawn towards the 'hard' alternative

If this is right and the Leave campaign won because it managed to convince people of all the losses the EU was creating, then a second referendum is really not a good idea.

But more worryingly, it seems to explain the more and more entrenched attitude of the ‘hard brexiters’. It’s pointing to the fact that regardless of the outcome of the negociations, the U.K. will have to deal with an extremely divided country. One where being or not being part of the EU will be a subject of discussion for the next 25 years. One where having any unity to face the (small or big) economic hardship coming our way will be missing but people more likely to blame each other for the outcome.
That’s a recipe for instability :(:(

Good luck to all the marchers today. I hope it's as peaceful as the previous ones and that the media bothers to report it. I've been on the others, but gutted I can't go today. Have a fabulous time. The sun is shining for you!