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!)

I agree with that distinction, Prettybird.

The nationalism of Irish football supporters in Paris is civic nationalism, and is an expression of an Ireland happy to be included (this is a big thing in Ireland) in an international tournament, and also happy to be showing up the Brits .

Nationalism brings no good to working class people...Bottom line is, when wealth is shared, and people are reasonably content, nationalism takes a back seat.

That is pretty much, in a nutshell, the Marxist analysis of historical forces.

It is what Tito hoped would be the glue and it just about worked, helped by the fact that Tito carried a big stick. The working class people of the 'so-called Yugoslavia' rejected that idea as soon as the stick was put away.

I think Garvan Walshe's comments on the Krastev article basically agree with the fundamental principle Krastev wrote about - in Walshe's argument some form of pride can be a strong motivating force; pride in the achievements of a certain culture, in the potential of a certain political and economic system, in a particular world view, in this case the liberal one. His argument brings us full circle. He can claim that he advocates a positive, embracing stance, an open, welcoming culture and political views, but admits that ultimately Europe is faced with encroachment by an alternative culture that may not wish to integrate, to adapt to European conditions. This is the ultimate dilemma for secular, liberal Europe and we can see various countries dealing with it in their own way - France and Denmark are trying to force integration, for instance.

Just watching the audio I know I know, they've added images over the top of Trump from The Sun. FFS. No trade deal with the US if we don't hard Brexit essentially, as a trade deal has to be fair to the US.

Not fair on us both. To them. So the brexiteer wet dream will boil down to not being an EU vassal state but being a US one instead. Sovereignty my arse. Though I suppose the US speak English at least bangs head on desk

Gaad 6.30 and my blood pressure's already up. He's such an a*.

'I told May how to do it'
He also said he had told Mrs May how to do a Brexit deal, but: "She didn't agree, she didn't listen to me."
"I told her how to do it. That will be up to her to say. But I told her how to do it. She wanted to go a different route," he said.

Who does he think he is?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-politics-44815558

Trump's words are music to the ERG of course, who don't mind being a US vassal. I would go further, would be delighted to be a US vassal, more than we are now. Bang goes the GFA and peace in Ireland if she listens to him.

I would imagine that May had to grit her teeth and contain her anger. I do think she is now trying to do the best she can, but she blew it by appeasing the right wing and then by rushing over to meet Trump.

Johnson would be a great representative for the country.

Dude, he's not even a great representative for his family.

No trade deal with the US if we don't hard Brexit essentially.

Well yesterday in an earlier press conference Donnie clearly did not remember or understand the expression hard Brexit.So its a bit rich if he's promoting something he didn't understand a few hours earlier. He'd been briefed in the interim I guess.

I went to bed early and missed the learned early hours discussion of nationalism, which made me feel very ignorant.

I was only talking about this in an amateur fashion to older DDs football fan friends on Wednesday . They turned up in England shirts and I shocked them by saying part of me wanted Croatia to win. I said there's a line between gracious patriotism and xenophobic nationalism and somehow we get it wrong.Somehow we do nationalism very badly and it invites scary xenophobia,
In some other countries the acceptable face of nationalism may produce a pride in cuisine, traditional dancing or traditional dress but here it seems as if there's no where for an acceptable side of it to go.

I've never understood is why the scary side of nationalism seems to be a left wing thing (in for example China) but a right wing thing here.

I found this article which says it's only in Europe that Leftwingers regard the defence of national independence (in face of perceived EU integration) as “right-wing” and therefore by definition reactionary.

villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2015/09/nationalism-before-socialism/

TBF lonely I was infering that from his usual nonsense around things like doing it the right way/what people wanted/blah blah

That is pretty much, in a nutshell, the Marxist analysis of historical forces

I came up with that one up on my own with the help of a few WW1 poets and Blackadder! I have never knowingy studied Marx,(tried to read the communist manifesto, but couldn't get through it). I just observed this country for starters.

It is what Tito hoped would be the glue and it just about worked, helped by the fact that Tito carried a big stick. The working class people of the 'so-called Yugoslavia' rejected that idea as soon as the stick was put away

They were 'persuaded' with weapons and vitriole, like here. What concerns me here are the parallels with Yugoslavia's break up too. It came as a result of chaos and parliamentary break down. The 'they' who were persuaded to kill their neighbours weren't mums, of course.

'So called' UK has had a very short tenure, soon to be even shorter. 'So called' United States clearly isn't either. Nationhood is a fictional construct, existing through old fashioned toffs getting poorer men to fight for them. Most of them, like lovely Scotland, are great places; it's quite nice planet, and most people are nice, but fearful.

Yup, Walshe looks at the impact of 2 fundamentalist religions colliding. Bush didn't call his war a crusade for nothing........
Funny how similar the of the christian alt right religious cultists are to islamic cultists. And how very similar the cultists running the show here are too.

Takes us back to the secular, elected, rule of law, light touch redistribution of wealth, flawed but functioning and federalist home I used to live in: the EU. I miss it.

Re Yugoslavia - to outsiders, like us, it seemed to happen quickly. One moment Torville and Dean were winning the Ice Skating there, the next Yugoslavia had to pull out of the 1992 European Cup, the next a bloodbath. The last, feared by those who knew the country, who were dismissed as pessimists. Unbelievable by most of us, because that was the sort of place we went on holiday to.

Most people forget that the UK in its present form is less than 100 years old.

Funny how the arguments about sex and gender going on insist that humans are 'non binary', but political discourse is being manipulated into reductive binary categories like liberal v nationalist. Marxist v capitalist. Us humans are pretty non binary in our views. I certainly am. I admire Lord Carrington, Andrea Dworkin and Gore Vidal, amongst others. (that would be a good dinner party!)

A secure culture accommodates diversity.

Good doc on Yugoslavia: it mainly collapsed through chaos and Machiavellian types.

@andrewhunterm
Britain is now in the unique position of a man who has loudly told the whole street he's leaving his wife for a cheerleader, only to discover said cheerleader is an absolute psychopath as he's walking down his own driveway.

Visiting the former Yugoslavia has had a profound effect on me. Bosnia is utterly beautiful as well as heart wrenching.

Jasmin Mujanovic @ jasminmuj is a fantastic follow atm. He does a lot of analysis of what is currently going on there as well are comparing what is happening in the US, UK and Europe in terms of common themes with the roots of the wars in the Balkans and the raise of authoritianism

If you are following Sarah Kenzior he's definitely for you. Same ideas and principles but from a slightly different angle.

What he's been saying of late about the Balkans is very alarming.

At our school we have a number of Romanian families. I know they weren't Yugoslavia, but seeing the talk reminded me. A few weeks back I had the complete pleasure of talking to a few about their pasts and brexit etc. It was amazing hearing from people of different ages about the end of communism and the slow drip of attitudes away from the learned secrecy and never talking to power.

There's a view here that they're only in it for the jobs/benefits/etc but being part of the EU means so much more to them, even the older generations. The massive bonus of being part of the EU for them is having a buffer against Russia. When they see people over here questioning why Putin would want to destabilise the EU, they say straight off a massive part is to get back the land they see as theirs.

That should be for Russia to get back the land russia sees as theirs.

Too many theys and theirs going on 😳

The former Yugoslavia is relevant in so far as the war would never have happened had it been an EU member. The strategic collectivity the EU offers has been utterly played down by Brexiters. Who the hell do they think is going to come to the UK’s aid as Russia increasingly muscles in? The US? What a time to break away from our closest friends and allies!!

RTB read a few threads from Jasmin Mujanovic. No way I will ever be able to put explain things as simply/clearly as he does but I find his explanations about the influence if Russia a bit of fresh air.

Why in earth no one is waking up to their tactics and influence is baffling me.

It’s also the reason why I believe that they EU is absolutely ESSENTIAL atm. To our safety and to peace in Europe.

And we seem to be leaving that safety place. Crazy.

Meanwhile back home in the EU:
Bulgaria edges closer to joining euro
www.yahoo.com/news/bulgaria-edges-closer-joining-euro-222712369.html?guccounter=1

Remembering that the U.K. never managed to fulfil the conditions to join the euro if they had wanted to.....

twitter.com/ards_richard/status/1017367323978752001

Hmmm.

Anyone seen this?

www.politicshome.com/news/uk/social-affairs/discrimination/news/96807/tory-mp-michael-fabricant-accused-islamophobia-over

Well, in fairness, some countries which joined the Euro may have been a little creative with their numbers.

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
I can’t quite believe I’m listening to discussion about whether to ban free expression, when it does not incite terror or hate, as if it’s a serious question for our age
And that’s banning free speech ... to avoid causing poltiical offence
Aaaaaaaarg.

I believe this is in reference to an interview on BBC Radio 4 with Sadiq Khan this morning.

He got asked similar on BBC Breakfast.