Westministenders: Back to School

[RedToothBrush]

No, I'm not referring to the start of a new parliamentary season, I'm referring to the number of politicians who need to literally go back to school. Its embarassing, and worrying.

Anyway, here is a slightly lengthy, end summer news round up for you.

The Brexit Headlines
It seems to be Cabinet Office policy to push for the Chequers Deal or for No Deal Even though Macron has very firm, plainly and clearly said "non" in no uncertain terms. Its significant because its come from the official Brexit Department and not from a sweating Dominic Raab at Dexeu.

He has however delivered the first batch of the Brexit Untechnical Papers which are supposed to advise what to do in the event of No Deal. In reality this is a PR exercise, which makes the assumption that some sort of minimual deal will have been done, rather than no deal at all, combined with a very practical plan for 'a wing and a prayer'. Which is a bit of an issue if we decide that we really are going to stick to the line that its Chequers or no deal.

These untechnical papers are ludicarious shallow, which some having the audaciency to say "plan for the news rules, but we haven't actually decided what the news rules are and we'll get back to you as soon as we've made them up". The completely skirt the entire subject of NI, saying merely, more or less "oh that one will just work itself out". Despite the untechnical papers don't include the crucial aviation one, which apparently was held back because it was regarded as 'too shambolic' which is quite the statement, if you've read any of them. Nor do they include details of the contract for hundreds of portaloos to line our motorways so that lorry drivers can still take a pee whilst they are stuck in queues for days. They might starve and no one else will have any food because all the lorries are stuck, but hell they'll be no exposure on the M20 to offend you.

Its not quite as bleak as it sounds though. The Chequers Deal is a vision of our future relationship with the EU. Its not the Withdrawal Deal. And the Withdrawal Deal (and backstop) is the thing that needs to be done in Oct / Nov. Which then will lead on to talks about the Chequers Deal. You can't talk about Chequers without having ALREADY agreed the Withdrawal. Which is very important to keep in mind as its continuely being lost in the media coverage. Could it be that all the sudden noise from the Cabinet Office, is an attempt to distract in the short term to protect the Withdrawal phrase?

Also as an alternative to Chequers, Macron is reportedly expected to propose something akin to an 'associate member' style agreement for the UK with a vision for the EU and its allies to form a series of "concentric circles", with Britain closely tied to the 27 "core" EU member states. If this sounds familiar it is. Guy Verhofstadt has been banging on about this as an idea since before Brexit. Its also a plan which has long been muted by Barnier too. It will probably go down like a lead balloon here, but there is a political will in the EU for a deal. There just isn't in the UK.

More generally in UK politics
Jeremy Corbyn has had a nice relaxing summer but after the hard upcoming weeks ahead, I think he'll still be looking forward to his holiday plans for the Autumn Break, when he visits Israel to profess he's still definitely not an anti-semite, because look he's visiting the evil Zion and talking to Jews. He will spend the next few month telling us that No Deal is a Very Bad Idea, whilst also trying to get his MPs to vote in ways that are a Very Bad Idea. Meanwhile the rest of Labour will indulge in a very public slanging match which most normal people have long since stopped caring about in anyway because they are so bored and disappointed in how far heads have been inserted up backsides.

Theresa May, has been in Africa, where she is trying to get trade deals with lots of countries we already have trade deals with through the EU. She's also in the midst of a fight with Spreadsheet Phil who has been busy telling her to butt out of the budget and realising information to undermine the 'No Deal' narrative all week. Oh and trying to persuade beg Mark Carney to stay another year at the BoE cos no one wants his job. Rees-Smug has been up to his usual English Gentleman Act where he replicates the MPs of the Victorian Era who were into fucking those from the colonies whilst stripping them for asserts, with impecable manners. Boris Johnson is looking for his next photo op where he can look zany and drop a headline grabbing offensive comment. If it winds May up, so much the better. The Tory Creche outing to Birmingham looks like its going to be a scream.

I should say something about the LDs here, so here's a tumbleweed for you.

Back to Brexit
The fishing wars have started. Michael Gove has yet to be sighted in a souwester though (give it time). The Scallop Wars are an insight into why we need a relationship with the EU. It turns out that the French are pissed because we've been using these big fuck off ships which dredge the sea bed and are a ecological disaster and haven't observed a break for a 'breeding season' this year, whilst the French are forced to do so by law. We had been observing an informal agreement where we stick to the same rules, but for some reason this year, some bright spark though it was a bad idea for us to do so. So the French have got a bit shirty in response. Gove is spitting the dummy and saying we will do something. The reality? Well what exactly can we do apart from go to the EU and use the EU courts apart from patrolling the seas with a lot of customs boats and officials we don't have? Cod Wars III here we come!

We've also announced plans for brand new white whale money pit satellite to circle solely over the UK. We aren't in need of coverage for the rest of the world, so we aren't going to waste money on flying over anywhere else who isn't prepared to help contribute financially to its construction. It is going under the draft name of 'Heliocentre'

In other news
If none of this cheers your spirits, then great news; Good Old Nige is making a come back!!! He's dead excited because he's planning his first big Nazi Leave means Leave rally in Bolton where he act out his childhood Hitler fantasy. It'll a cost you a fiver to get in. He's also bored and worried about his income, as he's now considering getting pasted in the London Mayoral Election for the publicity. So soon his face will be back on your TV boxes for Questiontime. Are you all so happy.

I rather suspect the Greens won't be objecting and will be only too happy they aren't getting the publicity they deserve as the 4th biggest party at the moment...

So the Summer is over and normal service is resuming. I hope you have enjoyed the rest and this post brings you a little up to speed. We have Party Conferences to look forward to in the upcoming weeks. Won't that be a joy to behold? And the resumption of shooting ourselves in the face in EU talks.

Oh and don't forget that Trump fellow too. Its all starting to look a bit tasty over there ahead of the November elections. What happens there in the next couple of months might be very important to what happens over here.

Who is excited?!

I am just dancing to the sound of the South African Beats.

I'm old enough to remember the daylight saving experiment - walking to school in the dark, wearing hi-viz waistcoats, but also being able to play out after school.

My parents were threatened with "the Social" by the bigoted dinosaur headmaster of our primary school because they were in the favour of the experiment (headmaster retired the following year, shortly after telling a Catholic American family, who'd moved here to manage the Singer factory in Clydebank, that he didn't want your sort in the school ).

Personally, even though I live in Scotland, I'd prefer BST all year round. I like the fact that Iceland (further West than us) effectively stays on double summer time all year round. It means that in winter it only gets light about midday - but it means that all (4 of ) the daylight hours are In the afternoon and you feel you can make use of them.

I hate it when the clocks go back in October

Going back to the topic, I found it somewhat telling amusing that Raab says that he is stubbornly optimistic about the fact that the UK can reach an agreement with the EU. Subtext to that stubbornness is "despite all the evidence to the contrary"

Don't get me started on May's dancing. I'm trying to expunge that image from my memory

🐟🎣👑 Place mat king.

I think I would prefer BST all year round too. As for schoolchildren going to school in the dark, it shouldn't be beyond them to have winter and summer opening hours e.g 9:30 start in winter and 8:30 in summer, with corresponding finishing times.

Still, outside the EU we will be able to set our own times. I wonder what we would do?

I heard that Spain was considering going back to GMT and summertime, because being on Central European Time is a relic of the Franco years, and neither the Canaries or Portugal are on it.

Thanks Hazardswan. With all this petition signing I expect to be on the list of traitors after next March.

I prefer GMT and wish we could just stay on it. Natural, innit? Still daylight at 11pm in June? No thanks, I like my sleep.

In Scotland our kids are already going to school in the dark in the morning - especially if they go to breakfast club. And there's hardly any daylight left when they get home When ds was at secondary, 2 days a week it was 3.50 when he finished so getting dim as he came home. The "short" days it could be even later if he had an after-school club - so even more in the "gloaming".

I love the light nights in the evening in summer , when the sun sets after 10pm - and can sleep anywhere, any time (although I do make sure not to fall asleep when driving on motorways have to have snoozes at service stations )

But in winter, I hate the fact that I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark. I'd rather go to work in the dark and get home with still at least a small amount of daylight left. If we stayed on BST, we'd have more months when that was the case.

Just listened to the emphasis on the BBC News. If you believed them, the only sticking point for the WA was the naming of regional origin foods (like Parma ham) and they only mentioned the "issue" on NI in passing Maybe the BBC has swallowed the Government trope line that "technology" will solve the problem

As I've gotten older I've found it harder to adjust when the clocks change. I'd rather the time stayed the same but schedule's changed instead. And that's coming from someone who is a real routine maniac.

I love this thread for so many reasons but often for a reality check. I know I think too little about Gibraltar in all this whilst being furious over NI, but I have given exceptionally little thought to places like the Falklands and Anguilla and probably loads others. I didn't even realise they didn't get a vote.

wise you and a lot of us love don't worry. If we get lucky all us traitors will get rounded up together and we'll have a party

For anyone interested, article is 6 months or so old discussing brexit and the fourteen British territories.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43126719

14! Who knew? someone I'm sure but defo not me

.

This has probably been posted but I thought this brief article contained pithy comments....

" ....the British prime minister - uniquely in history - is pursuing a cardinal policy in which not only does she not believe, but that she thinks could do her nation harm.
Her Remainer backbenchers will see it as vindication of her pusillanimity, her Brexiters as vindication of her view that she is a Remainer in Brexiter clothing."

The article repeats the point that African trade is a tiny percentage of our exports.
The three countries she has visited this week only account for £17.5bn of our trade. Compare that with £240bn with the EU....

It also makes this point " Britain may eventually find itself on the wrong side of future African trade negotiations.
At a time when Britain is divorcing itself from an economic trade zone, many African states are trying to marry up.
Regional customs zones have either been created or are in the process of creation, some of which have ambitions for a common currency and single market - not entirely dissimilar to the EU."

It just seems to me the decision to prioritise Africa at this point ( with the economy of the whole continent being less than France alone ) is actually a sign of profound desperation.

news.sky.com/story/theresa-mays-silence-on-brexit-success-leads-to-one-conclusion-11485765

" ....the British prime minister - uniquely in history - is pursuing a cardinal policy in which not only does she not believe, but that she thinks could do her nation harm.

Which must be worse than people like Chamberlain, who had good reasons for wanting to avoid war, as did most of the country, so genuinely thought that appeasement was the best policy. Theresa May's motivation is - What? The split in the Tory party is probably inevitable; I doubt whether she gives two hoots about "the will of the people". So is it just a case of she's blundering on because that's what she does, and doesn't have sufficient wisdom to know that sometimes changing your mind is the best policy?

Added to which, the Pensioners won't know whether they will be able to draw their pensions. The uprating in line with UK rates is currently an EU agreement - this is not forced to continue afterwards. It doesn't for citizens who have moved to Canada for example, and can cause considerable hardship to those affected. The cost of remedying this would be relatively modest, but it's not something our Government has bothered to do. Maybe they will consider it if thousands of pensioners start returning to the UK from Spain and France.

Some of the media are writing about coming down to earth after the fantasy they themselves spun

• orchestrated by Whitehall -

that EU leaders had blinked and would push Barnier aside to usher in the Age of British Unicorns.

As usual, the Irish media make the most realistic analyses:

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/britain-retreats-into-insular-shell-of-brexit-gloom-1.3613020

"The Macron tease was especially cruel because it chimed with the conviction,
clung to fervently throughout much of Whitehall and Westminster, < this is the real problem >
that the EU leaders are gearing up to push Barnier out of the way and take over the negotiations themselves.

When that happens, so the fantasy goes, the leaders will abandon the European Commission’s legalistic approach and its veneration of principles like the four freedoms of the single market.

Urged on by the carmakers of Germany, the winemakers of France and the Prosecco producers of Italy, the leaders will then strike a “sensible” deal based on May’s Chequers proposal.

Ireland will be told to get its backstop out of the way while Great Powers are at work on more important matters. < a favourite rightwing Brexiter fantasy >

But at least that little flurry of optimism helped the £ rally against the € so I did a bit better than I would have done getting some currency. Still nothing like as good as I would have done two years ago!

British strategy may be to sort out everything except the NI border, then hold out to the last moment,
expecting the other 26 countries to steamroller the RoI, rather than have no deal

So, British strategy is to pressure others to bully Ireland too
The British ruling class have always regarded the Irish as their serfs and maybe always will

imo, if their past crimes in Ireland - which led to the Partition - destroy the Tory party, it is well deserved
Much fairer than making Ireland suffer again, just for having been conquered & colonised in the past

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/0901/990836-brexit/

According to one source present, the Commission expressed concern that

the UK was toying with the idea of holding out on Ireland till the last minute,

and then trying to convince the EU that, if all the other elements of the backstop were in place,
surely they would not opt for a "no-deal", and all the damage that would entail,
simply to save Ireland.

"The Commission worries that that might be the fallback plan in London," says the source.
"It would be a case of London saying, ‘we clearly can’t work without anything, so we need a no-deal deal, which will help us bridge and face a no-deal, and that would look like the deal as it currently stands - minus Ireland."

That would also be unacceptable to Dublin.

The cynic in me reads many of the statements from the likes of Merkel Macron and Barnier that 'once you have followed OUR red lines which maintain the integrity of the EU' (understandably) you can have a special deal and 'kiss my backside' while you are down there.
Although I don't know enough of French or German I suspect there may be some subtle nuances in the actual words that they use which don't translate as beneficially into English.

They are just rying to dress things up in fine words, to spare the Uk gov's dignity.

The alternative deals the EU laid out for the UK have not changed since day 1;
because otherwise the EU would have to dismantle and reorganise its fundamnetal principles and treaties.
Not going to happen.

R North some time ago realistically summarised the UK's situation (which the UK govt apparently still doesn't understand) :

“As to "leverage" and all the rest, you are making the same elementary mistake of treating this in the manner of a bargaining session in a souk.

The UK has no leverage.
What does it take for people to understand that the UK has consigned itself to the status of third country and, from 30 March 2019, will be treated as such.^

That is the end of the story.

This is not a fairy tale.

There are no magic wands and there is nothing written into the script which says there has to be a happy ending.

If the UK takes certain actions, there will be certain consequences.
Unless HMG understands that (to quote a certain M Barner), there will be pain.”

It is a drawn out version of the 'Parrot sketch', It has gone to meet it's maker, dead, deceased etc. (whatever rights to the Pythons).

The thing about the S1 form for pensioners is a bit strange really because they have also confirmed that those living in France "in a regular fashion" would subsequently have access to the French system under PUMA. The British Government has consistently said (I know, I know) that they would continue to pay the S1 which means that the French might not accept it and would then have to pick up the tab. I think it is only in one area that is saying this so I think it may be a misunderstanding. Or nobody knows.

Sorry that was garbled. I keep being whizzed off the page by adverts.

By the way, whatever happened to the situation that until the WA was agreed, the UK wasn't supposed to be negotiating any extra-EU trade deals ? Did the EU relax that, or does Mays rain dance not count ?

I got the impression the dancing didn't count, nothing concrete was agreed (I don't think) just discussing the possibility.

I think the May and co gave the impression we had arranged trade to try and stem the flow of fears that this brexit 'plan' is a shite idea.

Talking of petitions, the Final Say campaign is starting to run out of steam. It's reached 724k but slowing down. I was really thinking it would match the numbers calling for a second ref back in 2016... Are people really not that bothered?
On a different note my parents are driving back to the UK today. 2 hour passport queue at Calais made them miss the ferry. Taste of things to come?

One of the best things about living where I do at the moment is the fairly constant, year round 12 hours of sunlight. It's incredibly refreshing to wake up every single day with the natural sunlight at about 6.30am. No changing of the clocks. I'd prefer it to be light in the evening for slightly longer, but it just means that everyone has decent outdoor lighting.

Perhaps when we Take Back Control we could also get the earth to change its orbit so the UK becomes equatorial?