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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.

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Quietrebel · 22/07/2018 17:23

Clashcity, I respectfully disagree. Defeatism is never the answer.

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 17:24

We are seeing an advanced Western G7 economy decide to set fire to itself

because a few dozen people are going to make billions of profit
and the hard right intend to wind back the clock before the Welfare State

It would be an interesting academic experiment, if it weren't for the 65 million human lab rats being used

54321go · 22/07/2018 17:34

While attempting to catch up on 'your' news today I did read the article about China Railways. It struck me how 'cheap' it looks compared to HS2. Ripping through 'peasant' villages has it's advantage, rather than overcompensating rich landowners in the UK.
Listening to R4 prog earlier this afternoon (afternoon news/debate) I had to switch off to avoid crashing the car with Mr unicorns spouting such crap.The idea of a second referendum might have some merit but a plan would be even better.

54321go · 22/07/2018 17:36

BCF, its OK, it is only 38 million lab rats, 17 Million voted for it and 'won'.

OlennasWimple · 22/07/2018 17:40

I had an argument with an American friend last week, about racism in the police. He was adamant that the British cops were as bad as the US cops, but without guns being used routinely in the UK the outcomes are very different. I disagreed, and I said that I thought that the modern Met had come a long way from the dark days of Stephen Lawrence.

I shall have to go and eat humble pie

DGRossetti · 22/07/2018 18:15

While attempting to catch up on 'your' news today I did read the article about China Railways. It struck me how 'cheap' it looks compared to HS2. Ripping through 'peasant' villages has it's advantage, rather than overcompensating rich landowners in the UK.

My DF genuinely couldn't understand why the Kent-London channel tunnel line couldn't be built by putting a ruler on a map. Presumably an expression of Roman ancestry ?

prettybird · 22/07/2018 18:24

Remember too that HS2 is another example of the North-South Divide, with spending concentrated in the South East, which contributed to the Brexit vote Sad

As Andy Burnham pointed out: HS2 is spending billions on new infrastructure in London and on tunnelling under the Tory voters Chilterns, whereas in Manchester they are being expected to give up prime city centre real estate for the HS2 line and tunnelling is only an option if the city is prepared to pay for it Hmm

ThisIsHistory · 22/07/2018 19:00

Well, with the Greeks about to exit bailout (with more debt than when they started), the vulture capitalists need another country on the periphery if Europe to squeeze until the pips squeak.

ClashCityRocker · 22/07/2018 19:10

quietrebel I hope you're right. It all seems very hopeless at the minute though.

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 19:11

Vastly more loot potential from a G7 country

Quietrebel · 22/07/2018 19:30

Clashcity, I know, so say a lot of my friends and actually, it's not really my style to participate so actively in a debate of this nature (hint in the name) but... now is precisely not the time to give up.
I've done a lot of soul searching recently: about my identity, what's best for the DC etc. And I refuse to leave because that would be giving up.

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 21:00

Many UK systems are not working properly even before Brexit
Imagine how the most vulnerable would cope, with a chaotic no-deal Brexit added to this:

Universal credit IT system 'broken', whistleblowers say

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/22/universal-credit-it-system-broken-service-centre-whistleblowers-say

BigChocFrenzy · 22/07/2018 21:45

Well, at least Raab looks awake when he stands next to Barnier.
DD always looked like he'd just crawled out of bed, still sozzled, into yesterday's clothes and was wondering whay the hell was going on

Now Raab just has to understand how international trade works, flights, agencies, everything the UK needs to krrp the country running ... not a good start so far

Westministenders: A Pickling Summer
mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 22:08

FG have always been less nationalist than FF and very pro-EU, although no RoI party is now Eurosceptic afaik
SF overtaking FF is interesting too - a sea change there since 2008

FF has been on a slide since the financial crisis and the perception that it became the party of cute hoors (a correct perception) and maybe some social conservatives, though FG has its silent share of social conservatives. Recent years have seen FG mopping up the progressive vote and saying all the right things about financial rectitude in the climate of mea culpa that followed the financial crisis. But austerity has hurt in Ireland, and the perception (true) that ordinary people are paying for the greed of bankers simmers below the surface.

To survive, FF needs to reinvent itself because SF is gaining the working class nationalist vote that used to be FF's. It may be too late.

An alliance of FF and SF would win any election against FG all the same. Labour is more likely to side with FG in any coalition. It's not really a party of the working classes in Ireland - this mantle was formerly FF's, positioning itself as a forward looking business friendly party at the same time, and now SF which is less business friendly but probably would be if in power (both are nationalist parties with a certain amount of redistributionist elements in their platforms).

No party is at all Eurosceptic, though.

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 22:41

Somerville
I expect a surge in nationalist activity off the back of these warnings that Irish-born-in-NI people could be rendered stateless.

I suspect there are some in the HO and maybe even in the Cabinet who would attempt to squeeze Ireland into accepting a hard border by effectively threatening all the Irish in the UK with deportation, loss of homes and livelihood. It wouldn't even have to be done officially - just present a mounting litany of difficulties put in the way of Irish people, hinting that more would follow.

Any such attempt would lead to immediate radicalisation of Republican and nationalist feeling in Ireland and in NI.

SF would gain tremendous support both north and south of the border. FF might gain some coattail support too. But there is no party in Ireland that would stand for that.

This should be a message to armed dissident Republicans that the way forward is the ballot box, but they have not bought into this concept. So it would most likely result in violence too. Not necessarily in Britain but maybe. There would be plenty of old scores settled first in NI among different factions, and then the security forces would start taking some serious hits. It would be very hard to rein any of it in and support in the US would be very high.

Arborea · 22/07/2018 22:43

Swedish Edith Thanks for posting that tweet by Emma DeSouza: it's chilling, and like Somerville I might have to rethink the plan of just having Irish passports for the children.

I mentioned it to my Remainer, British DH who once again dismissed it as fear-mongering as he thinks that I won't be 'kicked out' because of him and the children. I said that I might lose my right to vote though, and he thought that I should just turn British then if I minded being disenfranchised.

While in one sense I think he's probably right that the particular example of Irish citizens probably will be resolved, it's depressing to realise that even someone who is generally fairly liberal doesn't believe that there really is anything to get agitated about. I'm starting to understand some of the other posters to this board who have talked about the pressure that Brexit had put on their relationship, although I didn't expect it to happen to me!

I'm almost at the point of wondering whether it would be a good idea to start stockpiling non perishables, although it also occurred to me that if a lot of people did that we might have a short pre Brexit frenzy of it, and that might well in turn show up how well (or otherwise) our grocery supply systems work.

Quietrebel · 22/07/2018 22:45

I wonder how Trump aka 'Mr Brexit' would handle that!

Quietrebel · 22/07/2018 22:47

I was referring to mathanxiety's post btw

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 23:14

Although Farage couldn't get 100 people on the streets, the EDL Tommy Robinson fascists can mobilise several thousand, especially with the closely allied Brexiter "Democratic Football Lads Alliance" - an obvious attempt to gain younger male wc fascists for street fighting - and then there are the "Veterans for Brexit" many of whom are young or middle-aged ex forces, not very elderly or decrepit
BigChoc

I don't think UKIP are the problem any more. The UKIP platform is alive and kicking and masquerading as the Conservative and Unionist Party and to some extent as Labour, which has completely lost its moral Internationalist vision.

I think the problem is going to be actual Brownshirts.

The Veterans for Brexit group is a particularly worrying element to all of this. Staunch Unionist voters and men who engage in recreational violence have traditionally been well represented in the armed forces. There are elements of the establishment at the highest levels who would indulge all their right wing fantasies if the tide were to take a hard turn to the Right. Look at the career and contacts of Steve Baker to see the sort of milieu I am talking about.

I honestly believe that the UK is heading for a period of very right wing government and the collapse of all the assumptions that have held sway since the 1870s. The centre has collapsed and the influence of the hard right in the US is unchecked. I think the growth in the UK of US-influenced and financed fundamentalist Christianity has a lot to answer for. The phenomenon of religious fervour - seen in Brexit and in fundamentalist religions - has been absent from the British scene for hundreds of years.

There are crossovers of groups like those mentioned by BigChoc in the US into fundamentalist Christianity and into the KKK and white supremacists in South Africa, and also men's rights communities, as well as white-men-as-victims groups including those opposed to affirmative action and incels.

The UK is busy importing a perfect storm here.

mathanxiety · 22/07/2018 23:20

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/22/article-50-extension-unlikely-without-shift-in-uk-politics-say-eu-officials
This Guardian article was linked earlier.

The Guardian understands that during a meeting of EU ministers with Barnier on Friday, astonishment was expressed at May’s comments in Belfast earlier in the day in which she accused the EU of seeking to constitutionally and economically “dislocate” the UK.

“We want to de-dramatise this, talk it all down, and so there was surprise at the aggressive tone,” one diplomat said. “It just gives her even less room for manoeuvre. If she wants to give up, she should just say so.”

But while the negotiations have rarely looked so in danger of failing, senior EU officials and diplomats do not see any purpose in an extension to article 50, the two-year negotiating period set aside for a member withdrawing from the union, unless there is a change in British politics that can offer genuine hope of a better outcome.

“If it is time just for the sake of putting off an inevitable no deal, then it will not happen,” one senior diplomat involved in the negotiations said.

TM's tone deaf game-playing and willy swinging has not amused the EU. They are saying piss or get off the pot, and not for the first time.

mathanxiety · 23/07/2018 01:34

That statement of Pfeiffer's may focus minds on the possibility of reunification.

BigChocFrenzy · 23/07/2018 06:58

In a meeting last Friday, organised by Raab for the biggest UK busineeses,
Amazon UK chief warned that the Uk might have civil unrest within 2 weeks of a no-deal Brexit.
He said this was part of Amazon worst case contingency plans

Westministenders: A Pickling Summer
BigChocFrenzy · 23/07/2018 07:21

Andrew Marr yesterday questioned the new Brexit secretary Dominic Raab.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/22071801.pdf

This bit was on the EU-US open skies agreement, but would apply to Uk flights to/from all countries:

Marr: "with no deal we fall out of that"
Raab: "Yes".

Marr: "That does mean that the planes can’t carry on flying in at the moment doesn’t it?"
Raab: "I think we would resolve that issue".

< I wonder what Trump would demand from a desperate UK for that >

frumpety · 23/07/2018 07:30

Raab: "I think we would resolve that issue".

Did Marr go on to ask how ? and when ?

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