Westministenders: A LOOOONNNGGGGGGGG Hot Summer

[RedToothBrush]

May has officially demoted Raab and the Brexit Department to just being responsible for practical implimentation in the UK and not negogitions.

This shouldn't be a surprise, its been the case in reality for some time, much to David Davis annoyance.

The official government position now seems to be scare the shit out of everyone about the possibility of No Deal in order to force the EU to make a deal. Jeremy Hunt has been dutifully spelling this out, by talking about an 'accidental' Brexit.

The government are already outsourcing responsibility for this potential eventuality to industy and business by telling them they need to stockpile food in order to keep supply lines going. This WILL mean price rises will start to happen soon. It also means there is no coordinated government plan and if businesses can't afford to do this as its heavily dependant on having sufficient cash flow in reserve to be able to do it, or don't want to, then you, me and everyone else is going to be well and truly on their own. Whilst the public are not being told to stockpile, its hard to justify not doing so, if this is the current government line.

The government has also done a u-turn on when the repeal of the European Communities Act will come into force. They fought hard to have it fixed for 29th March 2019. Thats now been rolled back to Dec 2020. This is fine, but in practice, makes no difference what so ever if we have no deal or the EU refuse to honour a transition deal on the terms the UK want. The ERG will also go nuts at it and try to get May to roll back on it.

Raab has also made a point of saying that if we don't have a deal by October (rather than midnight 29th March 2019) we are going into No Deal land by default.

Parliament has now broken up for the summer, with May surviving, so things are likely to be a little quieter for a few weeks, but come September this is all going to blow up with avengance.

If you think the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster, just wait for the Autumn.

And I agree entirely with Clash I too have learned so much more from the may contributors to this and other threads. However, I took the view when voting that what I did know and understood, mainly a background in law and knowing that 45 years of legal agreements would be a challenge to unwind, led me to vote for the status quo. The absence of any coherent plan by any of the leave campaigns underscored my rejection of voting leave.

The irony of the nonsense of the EU ref vote being immovable and undemocratic to question, is that the vote reflects the world politics of over 2 years ago. The world hasn't stood still and things have changed hugely.

One of the reasons Brexiteers are so desperate to carpe diem .

meanwhile, not to everyones taste, but some valid points well made with humour

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bdcnwq/stewart-lee-content-provider

I am finding it tricky to see what happens in the interim while the 3 way negotiation is underway - which could take years.

Is that you Theresa ?

Sorry iwasntthere couldn't resist

I wondered if we could learn something from the architects of the Good Friday Agreement. How did they manage to help bring about this extremely hard won agreement? Then I remember that two of the architects were Major and Blair and we have already dismissed their pronouncements on Brexit.

May did not help with her bellicose talk upon taking office plus her blatantly xenophobic Tory conference of 2016. She is now belatedly realising that it's not easy, that it does require compromise, but even so still only sees a part of the picture. She still thinks she can Cherry pick the bits of the EU which are advantageous to the UK. Plus the abilities of the current political class can charitably be described as dismal for the most part, so even if the will was there, they aren't capable.

The wheels seem to be falling off some of the "new" Leavers on the other threads. Posting prolifically in an offensive yet persecution complex-based, fact-free, deflect/obfuscate style for 48 hours straight must be pretty exhausting .

born and JWIM - acknowledged both points re NI border and GFA. At the time of voting, a technological solution seemed feasible to me and it still does given time and development, but given triggering of Article 50 without even very high-level detail fleshed out these are not options that we have, and I really do not have a good answer for the place that we are in now.

As Clash said, it was a stupid question to ask of the British public. I read around as much as I could at the time but the devil is in the detail and each of the individual questions has a level of complexity that requires reams of study to unpick. Maybe that should have been a warning not to rock the status quo, but that doesn't seem an entirely satisfactory answer either.

Jay Rayner: Brexit provides the perfect ingredients for a national food crisis

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/29/no-deal-brexit-food-supply-chain-crisis

When it comes to the UK’s supply chain, preparations for a no-deal scenario are non-existent

... looking at British food security post-Brexit. It pointed out that the US is currently only the tenth largest exporter of food to Britain.

“For the US to replace the combined food imports from the other nine of the top 10,” the report said, “would require a vast food flotilla and logistics operation exceeding that of the 1940-45 Atlantic convoys.”

The reference to the second world war is apposite. The Atlantic convoys, like those cold stores, were created to counter an external, existential threat to national survival.
This peacetime threat has been created entirely by the ludicrous ideology of Brexit, its mismanagement by Theresa May’s government and infighting within the Tory party.

Our currently abundant food supply may well be downgraded to merely “adequate”.
It is a dereliction of duty and an abnegation of the basic responsibilities of good government, on a truly staggering scale.
Those involved should hang their heads in shame.

This isn't "punishment" by the EU, btw.
It's an automatic consequence of Brexit, unless we get a deal with a trade framework - and a transition period of some years to work out the details.
However, neither can happen unless the UK and EU first sign and approve a Withdrawal Agreement.

Under WTO non-discrimination rules, after a no-deal Brexit, the UK either has to wave through food imports from every country, or impose checks on food from the EU as well.

frumpety

Iwasntthere I recommend you read the daily blog of Richard North, a Leave campaigner for 30 years.

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86946#comment-4011736968

He is in despair about the mess the govt has made of Brexit, but still supports Brexit.

His previous blogs go into great technical detail about no deal, WTO, log-jammed ports, UK aviation being grounded.
He explains it is automatic, as the Uk falls out of international agencies that perform vital functions, certification bodies, all the EU trade deals with non-EU countries

He warned of this before Brexit and tried to persuade the official Leave campaign to adopt his Flexcit plan, which involves joining EEA /AFTA and then taking several years to sort out all the issues without harming the country (much)

Useful earlier blog about no-deal:
www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86405

"May's decision to leave its Single Market.
the disruption to our trade would not just be a car crash or a train wreck, it would be a whole fleet of jumbo jets crashing down on our entire economy."

eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86370
"One can genuinely see a state of emergency being declared, with the Army called out to escort truck-loads of food to besieged supermarkets"

www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86375

"chaos at our ports"
"bare shelves in our supermarkets"

The risk to peace because no one yet knows how to avoid a hard Irish border for goods and services:
www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=86473

frumpety < spanks >

Re NATO and EU Army - in my view the military is under-funded across Europe as whole (Trump is by no means the first US president to point this out though he is definitely the most vocal) and it still seems that this makes NATO a safer bet. It's not the special relationship so much as the additional American spending. I still think that this stands, particularly with instability to the east (Ukraine, Balkans) and with dependence on Russia for energy from Germany in particular.

What in God's name is going on with the AIBU threads ?

I don't know, but my spamming, seems to be helping them appear in most active.

(Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam spam spam!)

I am having fun.

I am enjoying your SPAM Red

BigChoc Thanks, I will go back and read Richard North again. Read some of his blogs in the run up to voting but haven't gone back recently.

Seriously, thanks all for talking to me. I don't have anyone to talk it through with in real life. Haven't found a leavers forum either where I can tolerate the other posters (huh, maybe that is telling me something ) or where either side will make any attempt at dialogue and it's very difficult to separate fact from opinion piece in the press on either side.

Welcome.
Drop in any time you want a sensible chat.
We enjoy debate and we do facts, so any info you find too is always welcome

IWasn't, there are sensible leavers. They get drowned out. Thats the frustrating thing for everyone to be honest. I do believe if sensible leavers got more of a platform then the ongoing conversation and political climate would be very different.

Off the top of my head, @OliverNorgrove is another reasonable one on twitter.

I find it very frustrating that so few voices from this part of the political spectrum are being heard.

I think a lot of leavers, like remainers thought it was an 'onbalance' decision rather than something they were passionately wedded without question.

Being reasonable is getting us nowhere

And being angry is going to achieve what exactly?

Be angry at the politicians not people who voted.

Don't get me wrong. I'm angry.

Push comes to shove, I'm not ever going to "get over" and forgive this division in society, however many rainbow-farting unicorns I end up receiving. And I believe the same is true of many Leavers, who need to cling to the "all the fault of Remoaner traitor fifth-columnists - they're not ever going to stop looking for treasonous motives in anyone they suspect voted Remain.

I just try not to actually let it all hang out like an Eastenders Christmas Special. Like what's been going on with one of the new prolific Leavers on the AIBU thread - it's just like watching somebody chainsaw their own limbs off.