Westminstenders: Summer Season

[RedToothBrush]

No its not the weather making your brain rot and stop thinking.

Thats just Brexit.

Ooo don't know what to make of this
Neither do I but Lammy is a mensch. (ooh, I just got that email too ) Stephen Bush's written about labour splitting up,
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/08/labour-party-split-inevitable-corbyn-MPs
but I don't think Lammy is in the Chuka Ummuna gang. Lawd knows.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45270554

More than 1,000 children born in the UK to parents from eight EU countries have been refused British passport renewals because of a Home Office error.

(contd).

I have a soft spot for Lammy. Wish I could go. I think it'd feel good to actually do the do. If anyone does go please take me in spirit!

I can't keep up with who is with who.

^^yes corb's is an embarrassment and frustrating. Can't get over the courgette tweet he's made himself really relevant...not.

Off to read the links while eating pudding

Corbyn is an utter disgrace

www.facebook.com/libdems/videos/266714907496866/

@bigchoc re RN blog yes the volte face has been quite astonishing. Peretz came out of yesterday's spat the better man I thought. In my view RN has taken advice and is re positioning or rather spreading his bets - to ensure he still has credibility next April whatever the outcome. A shame his debating style is so graceless. He would win much more support otherwise and his detailed knowledge is invaluable, but who could work with him?

Yes as he says the immediate effects of a no Brexit or bad Brexit may be mitigated by ( ffs can hardly believe I am writing this) the imposing of civil contingencies measures ( essentially martial Law) - this doesn't mean that the whole thing will not be a complete catastrophe. A slow burn, but a complete catastrophe.

The good news depending on your viewpoint is that Corbyn is getting almost zero coverage of his 4 day trip to Scotland.

He is an irrelevance up here

Just delurking to post this, which has arrived in my e-mail inbox after a long wait. Please support and share:

Permanent European Union Citizenship

European Union Citizenship

Main objectives
EU citizens elect the European Parliament and participate in its work, thus exercising treaty rights, enhancing Union democracy, and reinforcing its citizenship. Noting the ECJ’s view of Union citizenship as a ‘fundamental status’ of nationals of Member States, and that Brexit will strip millions of EU citizens of this status and their vote in European elections, requests the Commission propose means to avoid risk of collective loss of EU citizenship and rights, and assure all EU citizens that, once attained, such status is permanent and their rights acquired.

Web address of this proposed citizens’ initiative in the European Commission's register
ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/initiatives/ongoing/details/2018/000003

Support this initiative by filling in the form below

PS - I'm sure I am just one of many who silently follow the great work on here and so appreciate it.

DGR that passport story happened last time.
ohmymimi and thanks to the sisters on the trump thread. Your great work appreciated by many silent followers too.

Coming up:

Pete North
Pete North
@PeteNorth303
If you ever think your life is futile, just remember there are people lobbying Labour to come up with a coherent #Brexit policy.

Thanks, woman, it's been a long day in Trumpland, I forgot to post the linky:
eci.ec.europa.eu/002/public/#/initiative

Michael Crick @ michaellcrick
I'm hearing that for tomorrow's speech by Jeremy Corbyn about media freedom, news cameras are banned - "no room" we're told. Instead the organisers will distribute a transcript and video clips after the event. Wow! There's a good way to challenge people in power!

Harry Cole @ mrharrycole
Tomorrow Corbyn will give a speech about the future of the media - including the BBC, but his henchmen are currently blocking broadcast quality camera crews from attending and have promised instead to distribute clips afterwards. Hmm...

That's the Sun and Channel 4 going in unison 'you fucking WHAT?'

I"ve posted before my take on Corbyn's policy - and why so many MPs tolerate it:

I realised soon after the GE that they expect the Tories to badly screw up Brexit - don't we all = so it's Labour's big chance to get into power with genuinely socialist policies and stay in govt for a generation.

Also of course, they want to avoid the poison chalice of being in power themselves when Brexit happens.
and getting the blame for all that goes wrong.

There is a high chance of a hard Brexit - probably anything other than Norway+ will be hard in its effects.
This would hammer Uk exports, manufacturing and farming, cause an economic downturn, with high unemployment which could exceed the extra 2 million unemployed that MrsT added with her 80s de-industrialisation.

Unless the rightwing media perform miracles of obfuscation & smear, that would spike support for Labour

Also, although the govt could mitigate most short-term effects on food, medical imports, aviation etc this would require them to use the emergency powers in the Civil Contingencies Act
Discontent over this draconian restrictions could rival the poll-tax riots.

If the govt actually bungles their emergency planning - quite possible, since they have bungled everything else about Brexit -
so that there are shortages, then civil unrest could rocket off any UK scale there has been for the last 200 years.

The Jarrow Hunger Marches of the Depression represented genuinely starving people, but the country was far more deferential to its rulers and socially cohesive.
The lasting effects were probably only the election of the radical 1945 Labour govt that created the Welfare State
(which has been partly dismantled and would only need a few more good heaves to be toppled)

Civil unrest after March could be caused by far less deprivation than the country largely tolerated during the Depression.
Totally different society and expectations.

This time last year James Chapman was going bananas on twitter about what was happening, and then it stopped.
All year Richard North has being going bananas about what is happening and now it's stopped.
Andrew Neil has accused those who are pro EU of being 'organised'. As if........
Gardiner has joined Mogg and Farage in allusions to disorder if a vote on deal is allowed.
Dr Phil Hammond has been removed from BBC in hours of announcing his intention to stand against Mogg in election.
I had no expectations of Corbyn so I am not disappointed.
Strange times.
But familiar to historians.

Those elderly who support Brexit might tolerate power cuts and far fewer choices in food & drink, but even they might find they don"t want to relive the 1970s / 1950s / 1930s when they are old.
They won't like a house price crash

The young won't tolerate being deprived of what they take for granted: electricity, wifi, gadets, food choices
They mostly didn't vote for this clusterfuck

So, in the event of no deal / hard Brexit, the govt will have no choice but to use emergency powers to keep its citizens quiet
even if the rules on imports & exports send the UK trade deficit rocketing and total debt soaring for years.

Jim Pickard @ pickardje
buried in the Electoral Commission figures is fact that Tory party's income from membership has slumped from £1.46m to £835,000 in a year, for some reason.....compares to Labour getting £16m from membership subscriptions, up from £14m the previous year

so has Tory party membership fallen by 43 per cent in 12 months? "I can't give you an answer to that right now," says press office.

Tory chairman Brandon Lewis boasted in March that membership was "going up literally day by day" and had passed 124,000, contrary to rumours. Do these new figures imply the party is virtually (or literally) giving membership away?

so going back through earlier annual reports, turns out that £7-900k is pretty normal for Tory subscription income, question is why 2016 was a freakishly high figure (£1.46m)

another priceless fact is that the Tories received more from dead people (£1.7m in "legacies") than live members

so...Tory drop in subscription income reflects spike in people joining centrally in 2016 rather than via associations. (Membership is £25, of which HQ takes £5). So in 2017 party had to cough up to associations: that was offset vs its broader membership income figure for the year

Standard party membership for Tories is £25 per head. There are £5 memberships for under 23s and £15 memberships for armed forces.

If you assume every member pays £25; £1.46m works out at just 58400 members. If you assume that its closer to £15 per head average that works out at 97,333 members - which is close to what the Tory party membership has been speculated to actually be.

So if you use £15 for that £835,000 membership revenue that comes out at 55,666 members!

Or a drop of approximately 41667 members.

Thats of course a theoretical stab in the dark in what those revenue figures seem to indicate.

I also note this from a commons research briefing on political party membership:
Membership of UK political parties. As of January 2018, Labour had 552,000 members, compared to 124,000 Conservative members reported in March 2018. As of April 2018, SNP had 118,000, Liberal Democrats 101,000, Green Party 41,000, UKIP 21,000 and Plaid Cymru 8,000 members.

If the figure for the Conservative party membership, in this briefing is correct then each member would be paying just £11.70 per head! Which would suggest a sizeable percentage of members are under 23. Which we know to be untrue. Its hard not to conclude that the party hasn't been inflating membership figures somehow.

Also a membership of just 55,666 isnt much bigger than the membership of UKIP at its height.

imo, a few better informed, "rational" but staunch, Leavers have spent the last 1-2 years desperately warning against a form of Brexit they fear will be very damaging to the UK

BUT now they see this undesirable form is highly likely
and that a growing minority of the voters is getting alarmed at the consequences

So, rather than give up on Brexit, these fervent Leavers have decided to join those who are soothingly proclaiming that things will be ok with the kind of deal they were warning against

All to avoid the risk that the govt / public will take fright at the last moment and Brexit will be indefinitely postponed or cancelled.

All last year, I read estimates of 70k membership
The last few months, 125k has been referred to, including by William Hague (a former Tory leader)

Generally agreed that members have an average age of about 65

Bigchoc, if they manage to stockpile, offshore, hire security then they WILL be able to ride out the storm. And do very nicely out of it in the long run.

It makes you wonder if certain vocal opponents to no deal have simply been offered a bung to stfu.

Bigchoc, based on the revenue figures, I find it hard to believe that the Tory membership is currently much higher than 40,000. My local association recently merged with a neighbouring one. I thought it down to a shrink in membership alone, but finances do seem likely to also have played a role. I know that membership in my area has shrunk significantly in the last two years.

It makes you wonder if certain vocal opponents to no deal have simply been offered a bung to stfu
Yup.

I doubt there will be a crash out "no deal" now.

Who wants that? Is it 52% of the voters or a majority of the population, or a few obvious twats in the Tory Party who don't care about anyone but themselves?

Treason is a No Deal IMV.