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.

I have MS, @MrsRRR . I do what I can to have a semblance of control over my situation. It makes me feel better. Even if all I can do is ensure my family have food, water and shelter.

We weren't in the EU in the 50s under Macmillan.

(FT paywall) Honda speaks out over Brexit

https://www.ft.com/content/8f46b0d4-77b6-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475

Proud managers describe 2m components “flowing like water” to the factory line every working day. 

Some orders from EU suppliers arrive within five to 24 hours;
others, such as customised car seats, are summoned from local suppliers just 75 minutes before use.
Not a minute is wasted.

Honda now fears that the border checks that could be introduced as a result of Brexit will clog up the process.
If Britain were to leave the customs union, Honda estimates European parts will take a minimum of two to three days to reach the plant, and possibly as long as nine days.
Delivery times of finished cars may be just as unpredictable.

To a car industry famed for its clockwork tempo, the potential delays pose an existential challenge.

A warehouse capable of holding nine days’ worth of Honda stock would need to be roughly 300,000 sq m — one of the largest buildings on earth.

Its floorspace would be equivalent to 42 football pitches, almost three times Amazon’s main US distribution centre.
And its cost to operate would be as eye-catching as its proportions.
…
But these are nothing compared to what a clean break with the EU may bring.
“The breadth of what we are dealing with is unprecedented in terms of its total impact,” says Ian Howells, senior vice-president of Honda Europe.
…
“It is the end of the business model,”
says one senior EU diplomat handling Brexit who has met car executives laying out the dire consequences for their industry.
“It is nuts.”
…
BMW … Almost 90 per cent of the parts assembled in the German group’s four British factories come from mainland Europe.
…
The reality for Honda is that just 25 per cent of the Civic model is now “true UK content”.
Nissan is in a similar position: only 15 per cent of its components are paid for in sterling.

Put simply, the carmakers would never have developed these plant networks if they knew Britain planned to leave the EU’s customs union or single market.

I'm not in a movement. That's not what Preppers do.
I think calling people fascists is a lot worse than calling them idiots but I apologise if I have offended you by doing so.

Bellini Before the UK joined the then Common Market, it had a network of trading arrangements and agencies

However, even then the world was moving to trade blocs, which is why successive UK govts were so desperate to join
In the intervening 45 years, the worlds of international trade, international transport etc have moved on and become vastly more complex and intertwined.
As a comparison, think of the changes in phones over that time: the old landlines with a central exchanged controlled by human operators, vs the smart phones with internet.

The UK cannot step out for 45 years, then step back in again and expect the rest of the world to have stood still in how it handles trade, transport, agencies.

The UK Brexiting with no deal is like declaring Year Zero, which didn't work well for Kampuchea.

Disentangling 45 years, taking over trade deals and key functions from the EU should have planned as a detailled 10 year project

I have to disagree with your faith in our "welfare history" bellini

The welfare state and all the workers protections that were put in during the 40s and 50s were as a result not one but two world wars - the second of which really broke down do we thought the class barriers and created a sense of societal responsibility.

Ever since then - especially in England - there has been a move back to individual "rights" without the concomitant responsibility, along the lines of US society. If I were cynical, I'd say that this had been encouraged by the elite ( not the pesky experts ) as that means that they can entrench their positions as the wealthy ruling class. Privilege doesn't like giving up privilege .

I agree prettybird.
You've summed up perfectly what I was trying and failing to say. Thank you.
Well...I find out tomorrow if I need an op. I put it off 6 years ago. I'm going to go ahead now. God knows what healthcare will be like in another 6 years...
Off to relax and take more painkillers!

Good luck tomorrow, MrsRR

If it all goes tits up, I'm ready and keep that under review to avoid complacency. More likely in my view to be a general steady decline. Which I am also ready for.
The bastards people who think it's all going to be brilliant want us to panic and let them have the upper hand.

And, of course, good luck, @MrsRRR . I'll be sending good thoughts your way.

Good luck MrsRRR. Still think of a tiger when I see your name!

Thank you x

imo, May must be absolutely desperate to instruct Tory MEPs to voting to defend Hungary, which is genuinely becoming a fascist regime.

However, although I count her actions as shameless flirting with fascists, they makes her weak and unscrupulous, but not a fascist herself, ditto her party.

If the far right - who seem to have infiltrated - take over the party leadership, then the Tories may indeed become fascist-lite,
but imo they are nowhere there yet, merely an exceptionally incompetent, weak but unscrupulous hard right conservative party.

Article 7 is the main way in which the EU can handle a member country that is becoming a dictatorship, whether of the far right or the far left.

The European Parliament has to approve any Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, which may contain a trading framework.
It also has to approve any future trade deal.

So, it was really short-sighted - possibly ignorance of the WA approval process ? - to piss off most of the Parliament and its President.

We need them far more than we need a fascist country like Hungary, which is a pigmy economically (hence why the regime there needs to distract the public by demonising Jews & Muslims)

I can't believe we've got through another thread in less than a week... Brexit must be going badly! ( I mean - even worse than normal - which is dire at best.)

Is anyone planning an escape????
DH and I are both on the same page here but the other night he just said let's sell and rent something as there will be a crash.
We just don't want to be locked in with the crazies.
Happy to live in a gated community with you guys but otherwise sense that there is something of 1930s Germany about our current situation. When do we bale out?

Our politicians - or many of them at least - don’t understand how modern manufacturing and commerce work because they themselves operate in a similar way to their predecessors 50 and 100 years ago. Even if they sit on boards of companies, they are not technocrats - they don’t understand the 21st century. Hence they get it so spectacularly wrong.

I would guess that more big business will show their hand in the next week or two which would give a better view on the way things are really going. Up probably isn't an immediate option so to my mind a variety of ways 'down'. There are just too many unknowns at this time to really predict. As previous posters have suggested, specialist medicines and some 'essentials' could be rounded up but there are mechanisms for food supplies.

If the prediction by some, that planes and ships won't operate for a while then probably a 3 day week may happen for a while or similar 'conservation of resources'. There wouldn't be any exporting going on but as long as there are fuel supplies stuff within the UK would still move.

Do you think business are doing too little too late? We needed them to start throwing shit at the fan long ago. I was on the march on Saturday and I am feeling like the little guys are doing all of the heavy lifting here.

MrsR hope it goes ok tomorrow.

Fintan O’Toole: Trial runs for fascism are in full flow

Babies in cages were no ‘mistake’ by Trump but test-marketing for barbarism

One of the basic tools of fascism is the rigging of elections – we’ve seen that trialled in the election of Trump, in the Brexit referendum and (less successfully) in the French presidential elections. Another is the generation of tribal identities, the division of society into mutually exclusive polarities. Fascism does not need a majority – it typically comes to power with about 40 per cent support and then uses control and intimidation to consolidate that power. So it doesn’t matter if most people hate you, as long as your 40 per cent is fanatically committed. That’s been tested out too. And fascism of course needs a propaganda machine so effective that it creates for its followers a universe of “alternative facts” impervious to unwanted realities. Again, the testing for this is very far advanced

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trial-runs-for-fascism-are-in-full-flow-1.3543375

'Inside the American Embassy' Channel 4 documentary this week:
20 minutes in, a treatise by US embassy adviser on the devastation of the 'brexit': "Leavers are terrified." Surprise and shock of Trumpist US ambassador and co at the news that flights to US will be grounded too is pretty funny.

www.channel4.com/programmes/inside-the-american-embassy

planes and ships won't operate for a while then probably a 3 day week may happen for a while or similar 'conservation of resources
Didn't we have coal stocks during the last 3 day week and a population of 56m? And we didn't then need computers to operate every aspect of our lives.

there are mechanisms for food supplies
Do you think so?

Sadly, WorriedMutha I think it's over. They've got the power they want from the Repel Bill, they've (cough) discouraged dissent and voted through inability of HOC to veto No Deal.

I would so love to be wrong.

I agree woman, it looks like it’s too late. I can’t even see where a deus ex machina would come from at this point.

The only question left is - how bad is it going to be and what can we do to prepare?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3289666-Westministers-Operation-Over-The-Cliff?watched=1

Does anybody not think that ultimately May is a pragmatic remainer and that she is laying a trap for the Brexiteers? Isn't there a sensible majority? Why is the minority right wing fringe winning? If it is really as hopeless as it appears, should we be selling up and relocating now? (daughter in year 12 with university aspirations).

May is not pragmatic. She has clinged to the hostile environment, including students, and refusing doctors visa right up until Rudd was forced to take the fall for her.

There's the pointless article 50 court case.

May's many court cases involving the Home office.

She is deeply uncomfortable in being pragmatic. To the point of awkwardness. She has to stage manage her public appearances as there is not a drop of spontanity in there.

As for intelligent policy. She trigged A50 before having a plan and is hell bent on playing a game of chicken with the EU.

That's not responsible, in the slightest. It's fucking dangerous if she gets it wrong

I don't think May has the intelligence to lay a trap for anyone.