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Brexit

Westministenders: A Pickling Summer

983 replies

RedToothBrush · 18/07/2018 22:55

May has survived. The Turd Way has survived.

Whether this is true is another matter. The Turd Way was hijacked by the ERG who ripped it up and turned it from being a starting point to another ridiculous declaration of believing in Royal Unicorns. Rees-Smug has declared May LINO (Leader in Name Only) in tribute to BINO (Brexit in Name Only).

No one yet has grasped the consequences for NI. The backstop was absent from the White Paper except to say, it would never be used.

Johnson also in his commons resignation statement lives in a fantasy land, saying we had 2 and half years to get something in place for the Irish border. Except we don't because we don't have an agreed plan, we haven't hired the people to do it, there is no guarentee the way we are going that we will get a transition agreement agreed to afterall; its entirely dependent on us meeting certain criteria.

Even the Irish themselves haven't got to the point of admitting the possibility that there will be an Irish Border. Under WTO rules, members are legally required to secure their borders. If we are separate members to the EU we have to secure our border and they have to secure their border. In theory NI could be a separate member to the rest of the UK but this would breech the priniciple of a border in the Irish Sea.

No Deal has moved from being an option to being a distinct possibility.

The Trade Bill passed through the Commons unscathed with a dodgy pairing, the assistance of Labour rebels and the brewery tour organising skills of the LD and Labour whips despite the best efforts of Tory Rebels. It suggests the ERG have the numbers to force things but there still are no guarentees of anything.

We've had calls from Justine Greening for another referendum; despite it being obvious that the laws on referendums being ridiculously weak and just about everyone ignoring the findings of the electoral commision and the Leave Campaign's referal to the police. Even then the maximum penalties are wholly inadequate to prevent and deter electoral rigging.

We've had calls for a cross party government of National Unity. Which has been dismissed by Corbyn as an attempt at an establishment stitch up.

We've had the former Head of DexEu (the department who have refused the most FOI requests) and various ERG backbenchers (who said that publication of documents would damage the governments negotiations) ask for transparency and for draft DexEu documents to be published.

Ian Paisley Jr appears likely to be suspended from sitting in the HoC from 4th September for a month for breeching parliamentary standards, losing May one vital vote. She has however been bolstered by the resignation of John Woodcock from the Labour Party pledging his ongoing support of Brexit (he's been a Labour Rebel in the past). Plus there is the O'Mara Factor whereby the whole country could be at the mercy of whether Jared can be fucked to turn up to work at all or not.

There are growing signs out there for increasing support for EEA though despite it all.

The Trade Bill now goes to the Lords, where there is suggestion they might throw it out, after the Speaker declared they had the power to do so as it was a Supply Bill rather than a Money Bill thanks to the Amendments the ERG supplied.

All the while jobs are lost and companies are abandoning the UK and NI has had the most violence in years, but no one cares because Brexit means Brexit and its all worth it.

And finally, when being questioned by the Liason Select Committee, May said that 70 Technical Notices for Households and Businesses in the Event of No Deal would be published in August and September.

The country is in a total pickle.

OP posts:
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lonelyplanetmum · 21/07/2018 22:25

Right now we all need to talk to people - friends, family, random people we encounter.

Yes Born is right.

I spread the word constantly... We had parent end of year drinks the other night, the Mum in our class who leafleted for Leave was really looking daggers at me. I deliberately positioned myself where she could hear what I was saying.

TheElementsSong · 21/07/2018 22:34

Right now we all need to talk to people - friends, family, random people we encounter.

That went badly for DH yesterday when he tried (gently) to explain the food/medical supplies issue after FiL brought up Brexit (we try never to speak of it with him, in an effort to keep the peace). Not my tale to tell, but the upshot is FiL said some pretty shocking stuff (in front of the DC) and DH dragged us all back into the car and I think we won't be going there for a long time.

ConstantlyCold · 21/07/2018 22:43

I’m sorry elements your poor kids. It must be awful for your dh, I’m sure he loves his dad but trying to reconcile that with vile views must be hard.

prettybird · 21/07/2018 22:46

Ds had recently been introduced to the joy that is Bovril on buttered toast he blames me Wink after he want feeling well.

I'm going to have to send him up to Aberdeen Uni with extra supplies of jars of Bovril Grin

TheElementsSong · 21/07/2018 22:47

Thanks constantly it's poor DH I feel sorry for as he's tried so hard to avoid arguments by constantly biting his tongue for 2 years when FiL keeps trying to bring it up. The DC were more bemused than anything because (as one of them said matter-of-factly in the car) "What grandad said was really dumb" Grin

Peregrina · 21/07/2018 23:29

We need to talk to people yes, but are the people who make the decisions listening? Theresa May seems to have tin ears to everyone except the ERG people.

BigChocFrenzy · 21/07/2018 23:48

Brexiters seem to have been encouraged in their fantasies by Trump offering to recommend his Wall St lawyers to the UK, to sue the EU

Barnier must be getting fed up with this.
Now he has to explain it all again from page 1 to Raab

Dominic Raab: Britain will refuse to pay £39 billion divorce bill to Brussels if the EU fails to agree trade deal.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/07/21/dominic-raab-britainwill-refuse-pay-39-billion-divorce-bill/

RedToothBrush · 22/07/2018 00:06

Wirral Momentum @ wirralMomentum
Understand that NW Labour Party Regional Board have agreed to write to Chief Whip Nick Brown calling for the whip to be withdrawn from NW MPs Field and Stringer. It is not acceptable to vote against the whip on a matter of confidence in the Government.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/jewish-group-to-sue-labour-over-antisemitism-code-pp27rjnxr
Jewish group to sue Labour over antisemitism code

From times leader:
38% prepared to back a new right wing party that backed brexit. 24% prepared to back an explicit anti immigration, anti-inflammatory party. Farage and friends are planning to set up new hard brexit party whilst Bannon looking to set up a far right version of momentum. He is also talking to European far right groups to set up a Europe wide group called the Movement to aggitate against European elections.

Meanwhile 33% of people would back a new anti brexit centerist party. We now know why Vince Cable wasn't at the vote the other night. He was at a meeting about doing so.

We are in deep deep shit.

Westministenders: A Pickling Summer
Westministenders: A Pickling Summer
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thecatfromjapan · 22/07/2018 00:28

We don't have an election coming up until 2020.

Sadly, I think that means the UK's Brexit policy is effectively determined by the ERG group.

They are the only ones who are serious about destabilising May because they know the Conservative tank and file will replace her with a hard-line Brexiteers.

Conservative moderates are clearly petrified of that and/or a GE, so tend to buckle.

The rise of the far right is terrifying. BAnnon is a beacon for a whole group of well-funded interests. It is truly terrifying. Yes, he has Europe in his sights but I suspect he's moving in on the UK as one of the vultures circling for when Chaos Brexit hits.

Personally, I am thinking it less and less likely we're going to get through to 2020, a GE and Labour riding in like white knights.

But ... that seems to be the dream that still propels the leadership.

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 00:37

The Uk reverts to trying to go around Barnier whenever he demolishes their latest re-packaged fanmtasies.
Here we go again:

< The Uk wants a series of bilateral negotiations, so it isn't facing the 2-ton EU gorilla.
psst, Theresa: it never works and never will >

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-chequers-plan-theresa-may-michel-barnier-eu-uk-commission-ministers-a8458126.html

Cabinet ministers will be sent across Europe to try to rescue Theresa May’s Chequers plan for Brexit after its savaging by the EU’s negotiator.
Direct talks will be held with key politicians of EU countries, as the prime minister steps up attempts to bypass opposition to her proposals in the European Commission.

The move comes after the negotiations hit a fresh wall when Michel Barnier, the EU’s Brexit coordinator, warned aspects of the UK’s plan were impractical or even illegal.

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 00:45

www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-5978133/Top-Japanese-official-issues-ominous-warning-Theresa-Mays-Government-Brexit.html

A top Japanese official has issued an ominous warning to Theresa May's Government, saying a 'no-deal' Brexit would be 'impossible for us to accept'.

Shinichi Iida, a minister in the London embassy, said Japanese manufacturers are holding off on committing to the UK with new investments due to the uncertainty – and that potential new investors are steering clear of Britain.

Iida – who represents 1,000 Japanese firms with British operations including car giants Nissan, Toyota and Honda – said it was 'imperative' that the UK and EU reach an agreement on Brexit before a meeting of the European Council in October

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 00:51

Express claims that 3 more Brexiter ministers will resign if May makes any more concessions to the EU:

Chris Grayling (who orchestrated her leadership campaign !), Penny Mordaunt, Esther McVey

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/992433/brexit-news-theresa-may-cabinet-resignations-chris-grayling

RedToothBrush · 22/07/2018 00:52

I find the idea that Labour are white knights as somewhat laughable at present.

Not that I see any one else as a white knight either.

There is just a stench of corruption or total lack of self awareness everywhere.

I think there are a lot of women who feel it, smell it's present and see the rotten core of it and feel particularly helpless because the far right don't have their interests at heart, the far left will happily shit all over women, and identifarian centre don't value women and are oblivious to the damaging effect of their own bullshit.

Honestly I don't know where we go from here, which doesn't end badly for women's rights, and rights in general.

Tonight's poll is the worst sign yet of how far gone we are, and how inevitable a shit storm of epic proportions is in this country.

I don't particularly think things are necessarily a great deal rosier for a lot of Europe either for a variety of largely separate issues which are running parallel to each other, but producing an effect which combines their collective effect. Part of me thinks leaving the UK would only be swapping one issue for another rather than escaping this political shit storm.

The only thing that is vaguely positive atm is at least we are not the US.

Im trying hard not to be this bleak, but I honestly can't think of too many things to counter this conclusion.

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borntobequiet · 22/07/2018 05:47

Such a fuss about £39 000 000 000. (I do like putting all those zeros. And I think many politicians really don’t know their millions from their billions.)
The projected cost of HS2 is currently £56 billion.

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 06:06

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Ireland_Act_1920
Gives the background to the division of Ireland.

Wrt the question upthread about sending Scottish protestants to Ulster in order to ensure loyalty - yes, this was accomplished by means of the Plantation of Ulster under James I after the Irish aristocracy was vanquished in 1607 (the 'Flight of the Earls', after the Nine Years War), and involved colonisation by English and Scottish planters, who had to be protestant and loyal to the king.

The native population was evicted. An entire alternative hierarchical society was uprooted from England and Scotland and established on forfeited land.

Another aim of the plantation was to destroy the Gaelic society in Ulster and thus disrupt any natural alliance between Gaelic Ulster and Gaelic Scotland.

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 06:41

www.irishtimes.com/news/negotiating-the-treaty-1.95329

A 1996 Irish Times appraisal of the Anglo Irish Treaty negotiations of 1921, (uncharacteristically full of typos and poor punctuation).

On NI, the extremist Unionists in the Tory party and Craig and the Unionists in NI (already established by the Government of Ireland Act, 1920) always held the advantage.

Griffith suffered from the common nationalist blindspot in his belief that the Unionists would dance to the British tune. The British Government had been unable to bend them to its will in 1914, 1916 or 1917, and this was even less likely to happen in 1921 with a government established in Belfast, and when there was still substantial Conservative support for Unionist Ulster.

This being so, should Griffith as Pakenham contended, have ignored the illusory alternative of an aggressively anti-Irish regime under Law, and held George fast to his promise to resign if he could not deliver unity? It seems most likely that had George been forced by Griffith to resign, his place would have been taken by a Tory government which might well have resumed coercion in Ireland. Modern historians are in little doubt on this point, because it is very much borne out by Jones's diary.

  • the threat of a resumed war of attrition against civilian targets in Ireland, which had already seen the burning of the city of Cork and the shootings in Croke Park by the Black and Tans, was always in the background.

Griffith firmly believed the boundary commission would eventually bring about a united Ireland. No doubt he wanted to believe this, so, to that extent, the belief was self-induced. But there is also little doubt that the British encouraged him to think in this way. They could not do so openly for fear of a Tory revolt, so the message was conveyed indirectly. In early November, Lloyd George told his cabinet that if Northern Ireland remained outside the jurisdiction of an all-Ireland parliament, it could not retain Fermanagh and Tyrone.

EmilyAlice · 22/07/2018 07:42

I can't think of any circumstances under which the resignation of Grayling, McVey and Mordaunt would not be a good thing. Shame it is in that very reliable source, the Express.

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 07:55

You forgot the Polish Air force squadron - a key part of our survival.

Or the French contribution to Dunkirk, or the Free French.

And don't forget the many Irish pilots in the RAF (including my father, whose uncle was a minister in deValera's government at the time).

My old GP's brother (also Irish obv) was killed on the first day of the Battle of Britain.

But yes, things would have been far less dicey if the US hadn't been in full on isolationist mode.

54321go · 22/07/2018 07:56

Trying to remain 'cheerful' as the value of Sterling to Euro plumets (meaning all my life savings are devaluing rapidly as I can't get them out of the UK yet) is frustrating to say the least. It's way beyond the concept of £8 for a small jar of Marmite in the remote EU country I live in now (Northern France).
Signed 'Pissed off Brit in EU'.

borntobequiet · 22/07/2018 07:58

My mother, a nurse from Kilkenny, worked in both Gloucester and Liverpool during the war and was bombed in both.

EmilyAlice · 22/07/2018 08:07

It is rubbish isn't it 54321. So easy to see the decline of the UK economy in real time when your income is from £ to € transfers. I do have a good stock of marmite though. 😀 Actually it might be a good time (before it gets worse) for a British Corner shop order. We use it to stock up on Brinjal chutney, horseradish, English mustard etc.

Mrsr8 · 22/07/2018 08:39

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Message withdrawn at poster's request.

TheElementsSong · 22/07/2018 08:55

Haven't booked flights for Feb yet...cant decide. Is Feb too soon?

I wish we'd damn well cut our losses and jumped ship in 2016. I have no pleasure in saying to DH "I told you so" because he now acknowledges I was right; as I have said on here many times before we have the kind of qualifications that mean we could move pretty much anywhere, but they're also the kind of jobs that take a lot of time to organise a move.

So we are definitely stuck here aboard the HMS Unicorn McUnicornFace at least for the excitement of Independence Day. All we can do is set aside some supplies and savings, and maybe (as you're doing) planning a long holiday [by boat perhaps] for around the day itself.

And hope that it's the Patriotic Leavers, not us Remoaners, who are right about what's coming up.

Although we would have to choose the right set of Leavers to believe, as there is a significant contingent of "We always knew it would be hard, we should be willing to eat boiled grass for 30 years, to achieve Freedom" - there are fewer and fewer of the "Sunlit Uplands of Wealth and Trade Deals from awestruck supplicant nations worldwide" lot these days.

Mrsr8 · 22/07/2018 09:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ChardonnaysPrettySister · 22/07/2018 09:00

I cannot for the life of me understand why MPs push for Hard Brexit/No Deal.

Surely they must see it's suicidal madness?

They must be the sort of loons who think a Buffy Reboot is a good thing