Westministers: Operation Over The Cliff

[RedToothBrush]

Bit late and didn't realise the last thread was so close to the end... so this is a very quick OP

What do you think the secret continency plan name the government have in place for the No Deal?

Suggestions Please

@bbclaurak
Cabinet ministers have been emailed to say they will have their phones and any apple watches taken off them at the door at Chequers and only get them back at the end of the meeting which might go until 11pm

A level re sits?

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/05/davis-and-mcvey-up-the-ante-in-game-of-sack-me-if-you-dare

Steven Swinford @ steven_swinford
EXCLUSIVE One final small detail about tomorrow's Chequers summit which is worth noting. The PM is bringing civil servants to Chequers who will update the Brexit paper LIVE as differences between ministers are resolved. Or that's the plan at least

Ian Dunt @ iandunt
This is going to be hilarious. They should just make it a Google doc and let everyone make their own special unicorn additions in real time.

Aka How not to make the biggest policy decision in a generation.

Neil Henderson @ hendopolis
FINANCIAL TIMES: Brussels rigidity over Brexit puts lives at risk, says German Minister #tomorrowspaperstoday

Steve Peers @
It was only a matter of time before an interior minister bucked the Barnier position.

"Mr Seehofer...is pushing for UK to continue to enjoy full access to databases after Brexit"

amp.ft.com/content/1ff1fd74-8049-11e8-8e67-1e1a0846c475?__twitter_impression=true
EU rigidity on Brexit putting lives at risk, says German minister
CSU’s Seehofer delivers boost for May with call for security co-operation

Faisal Islam @ faisalislam
pro business senior Tory MP who has seen FAC paper says “Blood on carpet no bad thing for PM. Noones indispensable. They cannot behave like a party within a party and moderates want her to see them off”.
Says brexiters wont like paper but will have to “suck up a lot”

Tim Montgomerie @ Montie
I have little sympathy with any Cabinet minister who resigns in next day or two. Time to act against PMTM was immediately after her disastrous gen elect campaign - when it was obvious she wasn’t up to job and there was time for v different EU renegotiations strategy #TooLateNow

Interesting

Rachel Maclean MP
@redditchrachel
I voted remain but as soon as I heard the referendum result I strongly believed we must leave because politicians ignore people and democracy at their peril. Now we MPs must put the country first, unite our party behind our PM and deliver #Brexit.

In an ideal world politicians would be capable of critical thought, wouldn't they?

And then there's Rachel Maclean. I don't know wtf she is but jeebus.

High drama or so we are being led to believe.

UK must agree to CU/SM situation and no border re ROI/NI or it is no agreement again. That really IS a red line!

Anyway I doubt anything that is proposed apart from a Norway/Switz type situation will work anymore.

Interesting to see what happens though. Will there be sackings or resignations? Maybe TM is playing a blinder here, or maybe not.

So if the "people" voted to kill all , would the politicians deem that "the people have spoken" and then enact the genocide?

A more extreme analogy than "voting to jump off the cliff", but it's the same principle

One Brussels source said: “We have been telling the UK for two years that we would not accept a single market a la carte.
“What do they come with? – A single market a la carte.”

From the independent.
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-uk-customs-plan-dead-on-arrival-eu-trade-tariffs-theresa-may-a8433041.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true

54321 Depressing that the BBC is weeks behind me, re the UK losing its rights to certify damn near everything that interacts with other countries.

As I posted, that includes aviation components, all UK airports, certificates for pilots, pilot training simulations, truck drivers, cars & components, every damn manufactured component or food product, pharmaceuticals …
Basically, everything that enables a modern ountry to trade & interact with other countries

Just to add to the excitement, it is not that far off 'new thread time'.

If May really intends to keep her promise to Fox re "independent trade policy" then that rules out staying in the Customs Union and hence rules out Barnier's recommendation of Norway++ (SM+CU+passporting)

It doesn't necessarily rule out a basic Norway-type deal, as Norway can make its own deals, as well as sharing the EFTA ones.
However, Norway has goods delays of 1-2 hrs at its border (Sweden) with the EU,
which could bugger up UK manufactures with imported JIT components - Norway's manufacturing is tiny compared to the UK -
as well as maybe sufficient to cause an RoI veto.

@BCF
I would suspect a mix of 'don't frighten the horses with difficult concepts' and 'report as little factual as you can' instructions. Hardly any of the BBC reporting is really hard hitting and usually ends with a rather weird 'upswing' that suggests its bad, but not really.

In the advisory referendum, less than 30% of the population, less than 40% of the electorate voted Leave. Those who did voted for all sorts of reasons, many to protest against things that were the responsiblity of the UK government, not the EU.

Many believed lies like the lies on the bus. In the words of the man who bankrolled that lying campaign, Aaron Banks, "they led people up the garden path".

The right wing gutter press, The Sun, DM and Express, owned by billionaire tax exiles, have brainwashed their poorly educated readers for years into an anti-EU fervour focussed on hatred of immigrants.

Even now no-one has come up with a workable scenario for brexit. The Irish border question is insoluble. Any kind of brexit will damage the UK economy irreparably for generations . We have already lost billions and there is evidence emerging that Farage conspired with hedge-funds to mislead so they could make a quick killing on "shorting" the pound. The Electoral Commission has exposed dishonest and illegal collaberations between the various leave campaign groups.

No wonder we are the laughing stock of the world. Even if the England football team won the World Cup, it would not mend our damaged international reputation as a fair-play country we once had.

There is only one solution. Cancel brexit and Remain in the EU. Lord Kerr, the author of Article 50 has said it is revocable. It is a huge disappointment that we do not have a strong voice in parliament reflecting the views of the hundreds of thousands of good people who joined the march for a People's vote when the terms of the deal are known. "No deal" should not mean jump off the cliff, it should mean REMAIN.

If Mrs May really sticks to all she said at PMQT then it is a totally hard Brexit on the table as far as I can see.
On the security matters and Mr Seehoffer's comments, do you suppose that all 27 will be happy with the UK 'leaking' security data to the USA?

Additional problem with a Single Market for goods only:
goods are often heavily linked to services
and
services may often require FOM in practice; prompt on-site support can be essential, or customers will buy elsewhere, e.g. problem-solving expert engineers in aviation or software

In fact, services are often a key profit source for the manufacturers / producers.
e.g.

Car manufacturers typically make as much profit from car financing and selling replacement parts - all count as services - as selling cars (in fact some cars are sold at a loss)

Similarly, maintenance services and replacement parts are very important for the aviation industry - every time a plane lands, it is serviced and some of its umpteen thousand components are replaced as specified or if they downcheck.

When selling a software package, some of the profit comes from training the users and being paid for a helpdesk.

Greg Hands @GregHands
Who thinks this was sent to “all MPs”? It’s an art form to send a text to just one person “apologising for the round robin nature” of the text and see if that one (foolish) person leaks it. #DarkArts

TBF, a couple of political journalists have said its common for information to be sent to different people, with slight differences in the content, so they know who has leaked stuff. This wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility.

But would you really want the PM to look that dumb in the process??

I would agree with @Yaralie, at this point in the (non) negotiations, cancel Brexit. Parts of Europe will have 'switched off' the UK already and it will be a struggle to get back to where we were.
I was looking at the report about New Zealand earlier and trade with the UK is now down to around 3 percent of their market. Britain 'abandoned' them when we went into the common market so they have refocused and look to Aus and China.

Jim Pickard @PickardJE
Likewise am told Hammond and Clark and other Soft Brexit cabinet ministers have met for their own pre-Chequers caucus....

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3298332-Westministenders-High-Drama-at-The-Ok-Coral?watched=1

Just parking this here, cos I'm off to bed shortly.

The correct headline should read:

"Brexiteers shocked as May points out the obvious that this is all the EU will agree to and we will descend into anarchy pretty damn quickly if we don't suck it up."

We're only at 948 posts, so continuing ...

It was always expected that a few politicans & business people in Germany and other E27 countries

• with maybe more in the ruling Hungarian & Polish parties - would advocate making more concessions to the UK.

However, the big mistake Brexiter politicans - and voters - continue to make, is to assume that these are mainstreaam opinions.
They are not.

Very few German voters or politicians wish to give the UK more concessions.
In fact, Merkel remains the least hostile to the UK, while the SPD, FDP, Greens want a tougher line

It's rather like the particularly stupid belief by some rightwing Brexiters that the NI border should be solved by the RoI rejoining the UK:
There are indeed a few - much publicised - Irish voices calling for this, but only a tiny % of voters - under 5% - want this and no sane Irish politican would advocate it.

If Mrs May really sticks to all she said at PMQT then it is a totally hard Brexit on the table as far as I can see.

And she reneges on an international treaty which the GFA is. Would she do that? Well, blunder into it, yes.

Any party to a treaty can end their participation if they go through the correct procedures of informing all the other parties with due notice and - in the case of the GFA - inform the UN, where the treaty is lodged.

However, there would be a significant price to be paid internationally, in terms of the UK's reputation,
especially in countries with a significant Irish minority.

The RoI was very successful throughout the Troubles in leveraging support for its position and persuading other countries, especially the USA, to heavily pressure the UK to negotiate with Sinn Fein / IRA - that's how we got the GFA

In fact, breaking the GFA could scupper any US trade deal, because the powerful Irish American lobby might pressure Congress into blocking the trade bill

• only Congress can pass trade bills

Since Trump attended an IRA/ Sinn Fein fund-raiser in New York in the 1990s, while London was being bombed, we already know he would dump Britain any time it suits his interests to do so.