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!)

Strangely perhaps but the UK has already said it would 'join in' with an European army (treated as separate from the EU negotiations) although I am not sure which way the wind is blowing today.
Suing the EU is a bit like suing a cat because it is a cat. It is what it is and has a large rulebook to prove it.

But if the UK sues then I'm pretty sure any participation in an EU army would be dead in the water.

I find it ironic that one of the justifications of some of the Brexiters for their desire to leave was the prospect of an EU army

Even though it wasn't actually being proposed at the time ; all that was being suggested was increased cooperation and coordination. You know, like we do with NATO

All of the EU members have their own armies already and I would anticipate that there are already some treaties in place to 'request assistance' from other nations if one were attacked so I would see it as a process of establishing ultimate chain of command (assuming this is not existing or under negotiation).

What can the UK sue about? The EU is a club with rules and the UK wants out (or many think it wants out). You can't sue your local gym for not disobeying it's own rules.

How many deaths must there be in NI (accidentally or deliberately) before the UK Gov start to think seriously?

How many more businesses leaving or collapsing must there be in the U.K. (accidentally or deliberately) before the Gov start to think seriously?

Surely if we did sue the EU we would be sueing ourselves, as we are still a member.

There would have to be hundreds, perhaps thousands of deaths in NI before the gov. reacted. It’s been crisis management for too long for things to change now and the DUP wouldn’t allow backtracking on Brexit anyway. Cancelling Brexit would not stop the endemic violence in any case.

Maybe the British Government is regretting not carrying through the ethnic cleansing of NI that was mooted in the early 1970's. A proposal that up to 500,000 would be 'relocated'.
@Susan, The UK can't sue the EU for anything, The UK started this mess and the EU are only following the rulebook that the UK was or at least should have been reading.

Yet again Mrs May is spouting stuff that can never be achieved. She is acting like the persistent bluebottle, not appreciating the window preventing her moving forward.

Why does she keep buzzing around with this meaningless rhetoric?

Why has no politician ever tried saying something like this.

Look 16 million wanted this. But 17 million wanted that. X million didn't vote.

The only thing we can do is keep the status quo.

Or if so minded, say the only thing we can do is opt for an unsatisfactory half way house.

Why not call it as it is. Why keep feeding the Leavers with drivel and raising their expectations whilst exasperating Remainers with the imprecision and meaningless glib phrases.

Party first I suppose.

I know we can't sue them for anything. I was just pointing out the ridiculousness of people in general, and trump in particular, who seem to think the EU is some kind of separate entity, rather than the sum of it's parts.

I mean what the hell would we use them for anyway, making our country richer? Perhaps Boris can explain, he was rather keen on doing brexit the trump way.

My (perhaps childish) theory is that the 12 point plan actually has another line written in invisible ink (like the old lemon juice thing that kids do) which says 'Please turn over'.
On the other side is a statement to the effect that the previous 12 'pledges' can be ignored and that for any EU official reading, the UK would like to remain in the EU, 'pretty please'. Love Theresa!

I'm an MP, get me out of here!

Trump means suing the EU for following the rules
because a no-deal Brexit would be a catastrophe for the UK economy and a lot of things taken for gramted in a modern society would also stop working

However, the UK govt has the choice of Norway+ that would avoid all that.

No chance of winning a case that the EU won't damage its own Single Market
when the UK govt chose Brexit and inists on doing this stupid thing in such a stupid way

Trump, the far right and the Brexit Ultras are all like toddlers having a tremendous tantrum after being refused a unicorn
They are incapable of logic

{Why has no politician ever tried saying something like this.}
In a roundabout way, the departure of D Davies and even Boris is a statement that it can't be done. They have their own 'spin' on the situation of course but the actions show the direction.
Rats and sinking ships come to mind.

The Uk Brexit politicians are a mix of ignorant fools and / or shills for disaster capitalists

The main reason I rate the chance of Norway+ as high as 50% vs no-deal, is that senior civil servants behind the scenes will be desperately working behind the scenes to avoid a catastrophe for the country, possibly manipulating May & the Cabinet

I certainly don't expect May or any Brexiter minister to have a reality check about the very weak position of the UK in the negotitions or to put the country first

However, the more intelligent ones who have listened to their own govt impact studies would realise the catastrophe they would unleash with no-deal and will be considering what is most damaging to the party:

either Norway+ - a probable Tory party civil war and being hammered in the next 1-2 GEs
or no-deal - a probable Tory wipeout for a generation

Either choice could also results in the Tory party permanently splitting

or no-deal - a probable Tory wipeout for a generation

And lynchings. I am fairly certain that in a no-deal meltdown catastrophe we will see some lynchings. And perhaps the images of the Tommy Robinson brigade and their baseball bats, yesterday, may have helped bring that idea home.

And following the restoration of order (whenever that may be) the potential for treason trials.

There may be some members of the ERG too thick to work this out - but I bet David Davis and Bojo have seen the writing on the wall. Gove certainly has. Even Farage has.

avoiding a no deal brexit - or even a deeply damaging one isn't about political survival - it is about actual survival.
However, the sheer incompetence of the govt is a factor - and even though they know what will happen (to them - they have proven they don't care about what happens to the country and its people) they could still crash us out simply because they don't know how to avoid it.

But they can’t be sure they’ll get enough votes for Norway+. More likely parliament will vote no and insist on either an extension to Article 50 or a second vote. They just don’t have the numbers for hard or even pretty crap deal.

James Patrick @ james_p
It’ll dawn on everyone eventually that microtargeting and segmenting the electorate, using disinformation to influence public opinion, is only half the problem as that falsified “will” is then amplified to a much smaller segment, the policy makers, to influence state actions...

The Labour Story: decision makers being microtargeted to make particular decisions because 'it reflects popular opinion'. Except it doesn't. It's just a new form of lobbying which make be organised or straight out malicious, to confuse politicians as to what public opinion actually is...

pretzels Brexit politicians have boltholes and assets abroad, or at least are wealthy enough to flee the country

• only the ordinary plebs wil remain to suffer

In fact, a good warning of no-deal is if a lot of MPs and business leaders leave the country and don't return
They'll have advance information of what is coming

imo, a deal following the red lines but without the SM & CU would not be preferred by Parliament

• but if they vote any deal down, the alternative is probably no deal, unless they then vote to bring down the government.

Norway+ would be favoured by Parliament, since a large majority of MPs were Remainers
The risk to Tory marginal seats could be higher after a no-deal recession than after a UKIP swing

Boris's speech next week , I think he is going to say he was wrong and that he miscalculated exactly how much harm would occur to the UK if we left the EU. It would check mate TM , would allow him to come over all elder statesman in a future leadership bid and i suspect there will be a bit of 'Brutus is an honourable man' aimed at Gove

JRM clearly aware that any Tory who openly challenges a sitting Tory leader normally loses any subsequent leadership contest

He's calling her a "remainer", but doesn't dare say she should be replaced.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/15/theresa-may-donald-trump-told-me-to-sue-the-eu

“This seems to be a hopeless way to negotiate, to accept what the other side says at an early stage of negotiations as holy writ.”
…
“This is why I think she is a remainer, who has remained a remainer.”

But Rees-Mogg repeatedly declined to call for a change of leader

I would be staggered if Boris changes tack at this stage.
Probably more Brexit fantasy.

If he became PM (now unlikely) before Brexit, then he might do so,
but NOT before he has used the Brexiters to get there