Westministenders: May's Turd Way covered in Donald's Glittery Tickertape from his Parade

[RedToothBrush]

Where next?

Auditions for chief turd polisher to Mrs May are in full action, whilst those who don't believe in the turd, wade about knee deep in their own shit, still searching for that illusive plan for Brexit which doesn't stink to high heaven of crap.

After the dual resignation of Davis and Johnson, amongst the stench there is an air of uncertainity and expectation of all hell breaking loose.

In the last 48 hours we have been told that

1. May is more secure having crushed the brexiteers,
2. May about to be ousted by a no confidence vote, triggering a leadership election,
3. The Tory Party are about to split,
4. Brexiteers are in disarray fighting amongst themselves,
5. We will remain in the EU,
6. We get an EEA deal,
7. We will get no deal,
8. A People's vote is inevitable and
9. There will be a General Election.

Which only serves to merely highlight just how little of a clue ANYONE has about what happens next.

What bothers me now, is that Johnson seems not to have surfaced yet and there are rumours that Gove has gone to ground, whilst Donald Trump is practically on the plane and is stirring the pot praising Johnson.

Instead we seem to have a series of junior ministers and Tory HQ figures quitting in a long drawn out coordinated toy throwing out of the pram exercise, to try and get what hard brexiteers want.

If I had to hazard a guess at the general silence from key figures, I might be tempted to say that someone is going to use Trump's visit to throw a political grenade and actively invite him to endorse them.

That might sound ridiculous given that the public hates Trump, but that loses sight of the fact that the people who will vote for the next leader of the Tory Party are overwhelming authoritarian leaning and likely to be those who like Trump and would be impressed by such a move.

I note this tweet today from the wise Sarah Kendzior:

Sarah Kendzior @sarahkendzior
"There are parallels to past authoritarianism, but what's happening with Trump, in the digital age, is new and transnational. The president's loyalty is not necessarily to a state but to foreign leaders and multinational criminal alliances. The state is just something to sell."

It is clear that others in the parliamentary party will be very alarmed at the prospect. There were Tory MPs who were openly tweeted how please that disgusting Johnson had gone and are no fans of Trump.

May still seems to think that she can get her plan through and approved by the EU in its current form. The White Paper is due on Thursday.

Much speculation is that it will be significant if she fails to produce this on time, as she will have capitulated to the Brexiteers. And this will lead to the EU just giving up on us anyway.

She also announced to the Cabinet today, that preparations for No Deal were to be stepped up significantly.

We still are left wondering who, she is stitching up; the Brexiteers whose heads are currently exploding or the friends she keeps closest to her (friends? or ideological enemies).

The problem is that there just no other viable way forward at the moment, as the country is divided, both Labour and the Conservatives are divided and are more interested in their own future than that of the party and there are far too many ambitious 'celebrity MPs' who want to make their mark. No one gives a shit about ordinary workers or business. Plus there is the divine observation that DGRossetti made at the end of the last thread: The biggest obstacle to Brexit has been Brexiteers

The grab for post-Brexit power shows the whole of Westminister up as the cess pit of self interest it is, with Boris Johnson merely its biggest figure head.

Wait until the GFA officially has its head put on the chopping block awaiting its fate. Perhaps we can flog NI to Donald and get a Brexit Dividend afterall.

I must admit to finding it hard to have a view that is altogether different to this:
James Patrick @J_amesp
There is no way back from all of this. The next seven days simply decide how badly - on a scale of fucked to smouldering crater - it is going to end.

One final predictation, which I am DAMN certain of: Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are all going to be grim for political watching if you are into democratic values and principles. It will be a 4 day sales pitch for Brand Trump in all its All American Overblown Horror that Brits tend to find utterly distasteful. Expect the red carpet of full of turd glitter to be rolled out for Donald Trump Show. Expect May to embarass herself in her fawning all over him, as if she's star struck. Expect that hideously cringeworthy photo thats totally inevitable.

Politics is going to get worse. It may never get better.

(But yay football gets to cover it all up... Come on England!)

Keep remembering that no-deal Brexit happens automatically on Brexit Day, unless a deal is specifically approved by the UK & EU

But we can revoke article 50 at any point up to the second we leave. Brexiteers can run down the clock - but parliament can force that clock to stop. And they can, in theory, reject a deal and stop the clock. A crash out is not inevitable in the event of a rejected deal... all it would take is one phone call to end everything.

Parliament can't revoke A50

MPs only have the nuclear option of bringing down the govt

• but that would just bring in Corbyn

Parliament can NOT initiate legislation, only bring down the govt and try for a new one that would revoke

Parliament - the UK - cannot stop the clock
Only the EU can do that

MPs only have the nuclear option of bringing down the govt - but that would just bring in Corbyn

I think that's unlikely. We'd end up with no majority government again. Which would make things worse.

article 50 can be revoked.
I don't know if technically parliament can bring a motion to make TM revoke it... I don't know enough about the way bills work.
But we are living in unprecedented times - and as no deal ticks ever closer - and public dissatisfaction rises ever higher, I really think those in the chamber may force the issue.

No they can't physically do it. But I bet, when push comes to shove, they can make TM do it.

Parliament - the UK - cannot stop the clock
Only the EU can do that

And they have repeatedly said they are happy to do that. We can make the decision to do it - they will allow us to do it.
Did the decision ever get made on where we stand on that? I know the author of article 50 believed the country who triggered it could revoke it ... but it was disputed.

Not that it matters. The EU have repeatedly said they are open to us changing our minds.

To be clear - by stop the clock I mean, end article 50 - switch the clock off, as it were. Not extend article 50 - I know only the EU can agree to that.

No, Parliament has no power to pass legislation that the government doesn't want

They can only bring down the govt, or threaten to do so

• however, that is an empty threat as far as almost all Tory Remainers go and would be pointless anyway, bringing in Corbyn who would continue with Brexit

Parliament cannot appeal directly to the EU - only the govt can request that the clock be stopped - to give more time.
That might be less suicidal politically than reversing a referendum decision that still has considerable support.

No, Parliament has no power to pass legislation that the government doesn't want

Surely they can apply pressure though? Until the govt decides it does want what Parliament are agitating for?

If we're looking at crash out - and inside Parliament MPS were clamouring to put an end to it... and the govt ignore them - then that govt will have no one to blame or hide behind once the riots start (about 3 days later, assuming supermarket shelves were well stocked on brexit day).
I imagine thoughts like that might really focus the cabinet members minds.

I disagree with Woman's take on nationalism - People used to believe in religious cults too. Thankfully that's disappearing the same way 'nationalism' has for anyone with half a brain.
That is the quintessential liberal take on things, but it does not hold up to inspection.

Nationalism is a sturdy indefensible, and its role in maintaining opposition to communism in Eastern Europe, along with the role of organised clandestine religion, cannot be discounted.

Nor can its role in maintaining communism be discounted, paradoxically. Many partisans and anti-Nazi forces in occupied Europe were inspired by communism and fought for the establishment of communist regimes.

In the USSR, from the first day of Operation Barbarossa communism ceased to be anything but a national badge. The old symbols of church and empire were resuscitated and conscripted in the fight against the Nazi enemy. In the Cold War era, defensive Russian nationalism prompted the creation of the eastern bloc. Communist or imperial, Russia has never taken kindly to to being overrun.

It is interesting to note the resurgence of the Orthodox Church in Russia since the fall of Communism, with the full blessing of the government, and in particular the rebuilding - at tremendous cost - of such potent symbols of the old pre-communist Russia as the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow (demolished by Stalin to create a huge municipal swimming pool - symbolic iconoclasm all round). The Orthodox Church is a symbol of the old Imperial Russia and it also claims many sincere believers.

'Nationalism' was the fake currency of the power mongers in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia - or 'the so-called state of Yugoslavia' - as an Austrian academic friend of mine called it before it fell upon itself and self destructed, was never going to be a success as a state once the glue of the communist regime melted away. This was a state with three major religions, each sponsored by a former imperial power - Catholicism in Croatia (Austria-Hungary), Islam in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Ottoman Empire) and Orthodox Christianity in Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia (unofficially tied in with the USSR and before then allied with Imperial Russia - WWI for example). The Balkan region remains unsettled and seething with mutual hatreds that go back centuries.

Nationalism never went away despite the supra-national institutions of the Warsaw Pact and the EU and globalism and the spread of middle class expectations and consumerism. It is not some new thing raising its ugly head. It has always been around. The article is light on detail, and not too convincing, as to how it has survived, but the observation that it plays a role now and played a role in the fall of communism is correct.

Tarring all nationalism with the same brush and rejecting it lock, stock and barrel is a mistake on the part of liberals. It's not all going to lead to Srebrenica. Some of it is going to be expressed by Swedish and Irish football fans singing Dancing Queen on the streets of Paris.

The extremist, paranoid, hate-filled nationalism of Viktor Orban, the DUP, and the Front National, among others, happens in a political climate where on some level this tribalism is tolerated. If you unpick those three examples (and almost any other you can think of) you will find long-standing tacit support from protective institutions that should have been less tolerant of it. Hungary was a willing puppet of the Third Reich and the intolerance/racism and ethnocentrism of that state remains undiminished. The Front National expressed the feelings of many French citizens in the wake of France's imperial collapse, the heir to the right wing streak that dogged the Third Republic, and the DUP is the latest incarnation of rabid hatred of Catholics and Catholicism (coincidentally associated with Ireland and the Irish) that was cynically deployed by Randolph Churchill to boost his political career; Unionism became a cause célèbre for the Conservatives of his time, and an article of belief for the Conservative 'and Unionist' Party ever since.

Putin is a fascist dictator, nationalist, misogenyst, anti-semitic, homophobic, running Russia as a kleptocracy for himself and his billionaire mates - he's probably go a billion (dollars, not rubles) stashed away himself by now

Liberals - any democrats - are right to regard him and his regime with horror
BigChoc

Obviously I think that take on things is not warranted by the facts, and is too much influenced by the liberal horror of any nationalism whatsoever.

I think that thing on her arm is some sort of automatic insulin pump. She was pictured wearing it months ago, so I don't think it's a new thing.

No, Parliament has no power to pass legislation that the government doesn't want

Could an MP use the humble address to suggest a revocation of article 50? According to the explanation I found:
The humble address is a device which allows members to discuss a topic and vote on it, without a bill being presented, and any new law being formed, but in such a way that the govt is required to act
This year we've already had the govt refuse to publish their impact reports - only to have to, after the humble address' motion was passed.
And I think JRM is currently trying to timetable his own humble address (even though its supposed to be a tool of the opposition)

Possibly I'm way off on this .. but isn't this one way that Parliament can force the hand of the govt into doing something it doesn't want to?

Re Theresa's patch - it's a "Freestyle Libre" flash glucose monitoring patch. Instead of finger prick blood glucose testing, you wear one of these and scan with your phone, and get a nifty wee graph of what your blood sugar is doing!

I know because my son who has type 1 used to have one (back when he still got DLA and we could afford it - now he's 13 he's miraculously cured and doesn't have any extra care needs compared to other children his age, well, according to the DWP! ).

I bet Theresa is not lying awake at night worrying about if she'll be able to get insulin after a crash out Brexit next March!

It's very unlikely that a Private Member's Bill would become law and stop Brexit, but it is theoretically possible

It strikes me that the Unionists who blocked roads around Dundonald and the airport are war gaming.

I may be wrong, but this blocking of roads around major infrastructure points is a new thing in the Unionist repertoire. They have up to now stuck to burning cars, etc, in their own neighbourhoods.

The men involved were masked and some were armed according to reports. This had hallmarks of an organised paramilitary exercise.

Are they expecting to establish paramilitary control of large areas of NI, or even Belfast? Are they expecting to see civil unrest in the wake of Brexit, or do they feel that a reunited Ireland would come hot on the heels of Brexit-related economic collapse? With police distracted by bonfires and mayhem, did shipments of weapons arrive anywhere?

Arlene Foster was in Fife to fire up the faithful and demonstrate that the DUP has influence over the Scottish Conservatives.

...................
BigChoc
Why does any police force tolerate public incitement to murder ?

Imagine a bonfire in England, with a sign "kill all Christians"
I don't think that would left for long before the police move in and the media would be going nuts, not ignoring it

There is the tacit support dynamic at work. It's far enough away to be seen as foreign, and it's all for a cause that people feel a certain amount of sympathy for, and not just any people but people who are part of the Establishment. Unionists have strong links to the Tories and to the military. The result is paramilitaries in masks and massive bonfires extending a big fat middle finger to the institutions of state.

People used to believe in religious cults too. Thankfully that's disappearing the same way 'nationalism' has for anyone with half a brain.

I've spent today arguing on MN about how identity politics is the cult of the liberal and how it defines its foundations of morality is utterly blinkered. Ironically.

I'd also point out that the marriage of liberalism and nationalism in the Declaration of Independence is the enduring basis of so much liberal thinking for the last 200 years. It's ingrained in Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Nationalism itself is not inherently bad. Its a neutral thing that can be used for good or bad.

A good example is sport or music to encourage international friendship and peace.

'Patriotism is the last refugee of the scroundel' though (this quote is attributed to the revolutionary war against the British but is a repetition of a much older sentiment - to at least the Greeks). In other words nationalism is generally fine until it is used without scruples to mobilise people for nefarious purposes.

I think to a certain extent the problem comes back to people not really understanding the roots of where liberalism came from, nor understanding nationalism.

I've done far too much academic political rambling today though, and my brain is starting to fry and doubt itself. So that me done for the night.

Here's to hoping Trump keeps his mouth shut as much as possible tomorrow. I really can't stand it.

math I just think that nationalism is a fiction believed by many and used by a few when times get tough, demographics go down and fig leaves for the usual are needed. Tito knew well what he was holding together, and did successfully. ( and had a great film industry going) A nation state is just land that men have decided is their patch, and a premise on which to pawn its citizens.

This thread is quite a good analysis of that Krastev article, arguing that it's more nuanced than setting up liberals against nationalists. He argues that western demographic crisis, the rise of extremist religions are also factors in current 'populism'. Like you referred to with the orange lodge, Victor Orban and he alludes to the ISIS stuff.
twitter.com/garvanwalshe/status/1017305774119366657

Nationalism brings no good to working class people. We are cannon fodder one way or another. Sucking up to nationalists in case they get cross, brings harm: look at the state of the english labour party. If politicians /medias are going to use nationalism in their campaigns it should be handled with intelligence and discretion.

It has been used as the fig leaf for the brexit when the international capital which will inf act be the beneficiary will lead to the disintegration of the uk.

I reckon that humans have survived by being nomads, with no innate notion of 'nation'. That concept scares the bejesus out of the inernational capitalists, hence their desire to prevent us from getting out on britain with the ban on FOM. That a lot of people have been convinced that nationalism is an innate truth is true. I do understand that that attachment to 'national identity' makes shifting from that perspective something too terrifying for many to handle. But it's also a brilliant tool for manipulation. Look at all the 'You hate England' malarkey that brexit has induced.

Some of it is going to be expressed by Swedish and Irish football fans singing Dancing Queen on the streets of Paris
This sounds good, but I can't see how it's nationalism!

The visceral toxic masculinity of the current spate of alleged nationalism in the UK is cultish and violent, as I worry that we are about to see this weekend's demonstrations. I never went to East Belfast in the 1970s, but from the pictures, it looks a lot like most English towns right now. Flags.

nationalism is generally fine until it is used without scruples to mobilise people for nefarious purposes
Yes, agree with this.

Bottom line is, when wealth is shared, and people are reasonably content, nationalism takes a back seat. I realise now, that we were dangerously peaceful a couple of decades ago in Europe, and that was not tolerable for the 'powers that be'

Bit of a jumbled post, sorry. Interesting topic though.

But happy to disagree math

Flags and Nationalism in England July 2018
A tweet today from lorry driver

ciaran the Euro courier@donnyc1975
I had an EU sticker on my passport a few months back ... one of English border guards said “ your not a true Brit “ ... now being irish and British this pissed me off so he was reported and nothing was said .. I have the email from them about the incident

You know when you make horrific predictions and.......

@tnewtondunn
The Trump Interview - US President says Boris Johnson would "make a great Prime Minister";

Lots of pro-EU signs and flags at Blenheim today.

You know when you make horrific predictions and.......

Arrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree that not all "nationalisms" ate the same. It's also not as simple as comparing it to patriotism.

There is a difference between civic nationalism and ethnic nationalism.

One is a pride in your country - even if it is an adopted one - and no matter your background, ethnicity or birth place - if you contribute to that country and want to be part of it, you are accepted.

The other hates everyone who doesn't fit with their narrow view of what that nation "should" be. It "others" anyone who doesn't fit into pre-determined and narrow parameters.

I would argue that Scottish nationalism is a current example of civic nationalism. The White Paper "Scotland's Future" had said that anyone who lived in Scotland could claim Scottish nationality if they wanted it - as could anyone who had Scottish ancestry (going back 2 generations? can't remember) if they wanted.

It's not the same as patriotism, as I wouldn't be arrogant enough to say that Scots who don't want independence and/or wouldn't want to take Scottish nationality are not patriots. There are plenty of Scotland rugby fans who are extremely patriotic, and sing the Scottish anthem with passion but maybe choose to ignore the words who really really don't want an independent Scotland.