Westministenders: Talks Walk Out?

[RedToothBrush]

We are now on the countdown to whether we get a backstop Withdrawal Deal. May is hoping to get the EU to backdown on this saying that we will stay in the customs union until a deal is agreed on NI. That would mean come 29th March, we'd have no transistion period, but we'd still have a hard border in NI because we were out of the single market. And if the EU don't agree to it we are into the chances of accidental Brexit being sky high. The only way out would be revoking a50. May has hinted that if Tory MPs don't give her support we could end up with no brexit at all - whether she means revoking a50 or Beano isn't clear.

So onward to 18th October...

Re the impact of a no-deal, based on conversations in real life and discussions on my local FB group I'd say 98% of people are oblivious to the complexities of us leaving the EU and assume it'll be ok, and "they" ie government and nasty EU won't let things get out of hand.

chickens Earlier in the negotiations, the EU agreed to work with the UK - during the A50 period - to ask RoW countries to roll over all the FTAs and 700 odd other agreements

However, iitc the UK wanted the EU to produce a generic letter that the UK could quote to everyone, whereas the EU said that was pointless because it wouldn't work and each country and trade bloc needed to be contacted individually.

Also, the UK wanted rollover after all posible outcomes of Brexit, whereas I expect the EU had envisaged just helping to enable a rollover to cover the transition period leading into a Brexit deal

The EU got fed up with the UK demading they follow the UK approach to this and stopped helping.
Later, after the UK particuarly annoyed them during the negotiations, the EU said they would only resume helping rollover talks at the start of the transition period, if there was one.

It's a bit pathetic of May to think that disillusioned centre left people would vote Tory. Is she planning to call another election?
Here's the deal, Theresa and Jezza, if either of you stands on a Remain or, frankly, even a pause/revoke A50 for now platform, I might hold my nose and vote for you. Otherwise, please feck off.

Extraordinarily high postal vote turnout. I have no idea if 99% is normal.

I doubt it very much, although I don't know. IMO instead of asking voters at the Polling Booth to produce ID, where 'personation' is not a problem, thus disenfranchising some for no reason, the postal vote situation should be examined more thoroughly and have more checks. There have always been stories of abuse happening in old people's homes 'Put your cross here, dear' and the lifelong Labour voter votes Tory, (or vice versa.) Anecdote, but a story I have heard more than once.

It's a bit pathetic of May to think that disillusioned centre left people would vote Tory.

Didn't she think that at the last election, believing that the UKIP inclined Labour voters would switch? Mostly, they didn't. This time round I doubt if any will want to.

I doubt if LibDems would put their cross against a Tory name either - they know how they got treated when going into a Coalition in good faith.

A party which really listened to people and was seen to be doing something about work, housing, health might get votes, but I wouldn't bank on it. May is all soundbites and slogans.

Even if the Tories made it a Manifesto commitment, I couldn't vote for them. Cameron was going to enfranchise overseas UK residents and didn't. He also had a commitment to the Single Market, which bit the dust as soon as May got in. So no, they can't be trusted.

Here's the deal, Theresa and Jezza, if either of you stands on a Remain or, frankly, even a pause/revoke A50 for now platform, I might hold my nose and vote for you. Otherwise, please feck off

This is how I feel too.

My late Mum did a postal vote. I left the room when she voted, didn't look at the paper as she put it in the envelope and went to the post box for her. She voted Remain- for the future of the family she was about to leave behind. She told me and I believe her.

If you wanted to rig an election in the UK you'd do it with postal votes.

But I'm still sceptical.

The duplicate application for votes thing owes a fair amount to how they changed voter registration. I know we reregistered just in case.

Postal voting generally is a much higher turnout than ballot box.

Only one of those areas had a 99% turnout on postal votes on the 22% who had a postal ballot. The second highest place had a 96% turnout on 3% who had a postal ballot. Those two areas? Richmond and Gibraltar!!! Two places you'd expect a very high turnout on postal ballot due to education / implications. Everywhere else on the list is a mix, but I'd also point out that with the exception of one every area had a postal vote take up of less than 20%. And turnout at the ballot box was also exceptionally high at over 70% with many well over 70%. (which is unheard of).

I'd have been much more concerned if there was a 99% postal turnout in Sunderland where the postal vote turnout is over 50% or if ballot box turnout hadn't been so high.

Then this person who complained that the postal vote turnout was too high then points out the million postal ballot that weren't received saying they were people who intended to vote but didn't!!!! Well if they did there would have been a 100 % turnout! You can't have it both ways.

Then there's the rejected postal ballots. Just a point but what happens to ballots received on the 24th June or after? I'd expect them to be counted but discounted rather than simply discarded. It would be prudent simply to see how many in each area were lost in the post in case there were places with an abnormal rate. Or might have been damaged in the post rendering them void.

Then there's the registration rate being higher than 100%. We aren't shown the bottom of that chart and whether there were areas with an unusually low registration rate. What members isn't if areas have an unusually high registration rate higher than the population in a single area. It only matters if that's higher than the population across the entire country. Remember the ref was highly unusual because it was in June - after the university term had finished. That makes it harder to say there was something up because patterns of voting WOULD be unusual and you'd expect them to be unusual.

Then she points out how bad it is that Idox handles voter registration and counting in Scotland and just got the contract for NI.

Scotland voted remain conclusively. So did NI. So I'm struggling a little on this.

Yes I AM concerned about out sourcing this to a private company, especially one with such close links to the US religious right oligarchs connected with Trump, due to the risk of data leak or people mysteriously dropping off registration. But evidence for it at the ref? I'm struggling. Political parties can get voter registration lists anyway. And a list of who is registered for postal voting (I was out delivering remain stuff to a specific postal voter address list, just before the ballots were sent out.) This is normal. But having lists like this, I do think leaves postal voting open to abuse. It just takes someone to go round to these addresses to collect those papers - remembering postal voters are often vulnerable elderly - whilst claiming to be helpful.

Don't get me round the Idox stuff bothers me. But not in the way that thread goes on about.

I do think that person is looking for stuff to sound controversial and a) is misrepresentating what's there b) deliberately omitting information which is relevant c) not being critical enough - note complaining about things in high remain voting areas d) not aware enough of normal voting patterns and e) frankly really doesn't know what they are talking about and are trying to make a conspiracy theory based on a growing mistrust in democracy which in itself can lead to voter suppression through demoralisation.

All the other stuff about Henry VIII powers etc being part of a pre-ref plan sounds like a bond script with a genius baddie. Struggling with that too, having read a couple of these think tank plans.

May has form for acting like that, and overstepping her power and looking for ways to do that. I don't think she would have needed a think tank for that one.

So yes, I'm filing that thread on 'EU ref irregularities' under 'bollocks we should largely ignore'.

Except idox. Outsourcing electoral services leaves us vulnerable to genuine vote rigging in the future. But I think it a future concern rather than an historic one.

If you were the sort of Labour voter who felt they were tipping too far to the left, you're not really likely to look at the very much far right tipping Tories and go 'oh yeah, they're really moderate'. She really is delusional isn't she?

the postal vote situation should be examined more thoroughly and have more checks. There have always been stories of abuse happening in old people's homes 'Put your cross here, dear' and the lifelong Labour voter votes Tory, (or vice versa.)

It's going to be very tricky to achieve this without infringing on the human right of elderly and/or incapacitated people to vote. There is no legal threshold for having the mental capacity to vote; and of course even if there were, it would be heavily value laden (who's the right - or wrong - candidate/party to vote for?)

At a normal election, once the polls have closed, the counting staff start to open the postal ballots. Postal votes received after 10pm will not be counted. So for late votes the answer will be 'tough'. If you have a postal vote and think it won't get there in time, you are allowed to go to your polling station and hand it in.

Some EU residents didn't get their postal votes in time, I know that. So they were disenfranchised. Whether it made a difference, it's hard to tell. We can't assume that everyone entitled to vote but living in the EU would have voted Remain.

Other things, like people associated with the election campaign - it's normal not to appoint them as counting staff.

Fair enough Peregrina and Red, Interesting analysis there. I know very little about electoral procedures. With the 'negligence' and illegal practices (in respective order) of the EC and Leave, it's worth keeping an eye on what's going on/went on.

Kenyan election ( with CA involvement) was monitored by UN, but there's been silence about what happened here from them.

I imagine that the polling and counting was done in accordance with the law. On the whole, the staff involved do know what they are doing.

The real problems are the false statements made, and the interference and money spent from outside sources.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/07/russian-interference-goes-beyond-spying-to-the-very-heart-of-britain

An interesting article about Russia influence over the world (not just Brexit).
I can guess why the police and intelligence services have released nothing on the meetings between Leave.EU and the Russian embassy. If they were to do their duty, they would embarrass a Conservative party that was taking Britain out of the EU and a Labour party led by far-leftists who have opposed the EU all their lives. Neither wants the Brexit campaign examined. I do not want to draw a crass moral equivalence between the Russian and British security services, but they are similar in one respect: both put political convenience before the national interest.

Which then makes you wonder where is the democracy in the U.K. if class privilege still beats open justice in the English courts.....

Arborea is right.

I know a couple of the postal vote Houses from the ref, were noticebly with piles of post built up or had a very elderly resident living in them from the state of the house in my local area.

I can think of three who have since died as the house has gone on the market.

Students are another group who are heavily over represented in the postal vote too and they already have particular barriers to voting.

The point v being that the Tories can't afford to lose the postal vote - and neither can Labour.

The places with the highest rates of postal voting are very traditionally Labour areas. Sunderland and Newcastle. There was a big push on it some years back under Labour.

Now there are older traditional Labour voters who are probrexit or increasingly sympathetic to the Tories people can't really claim it as more unfair on that basis alone. It favoured leave ultimately.

The system is open to abuse more because there is a postal vote list which campaigners have access to. Postal voters because they are more likely to vote are more heavily targeted too. I'd look at making this confidential information to the possibility of abuse this way. This, obviously, would be more of an issue at the ref where every vote counts, than on a constituency based voting. And previous pushes in localised areas on postal voting would also have an effect in voting patterns and who was targeted when.

I'm conscious that the postal ballots went out the weekend campaigning was suspended for postal voting due to Jo Cox's murder. We had to wait to get the remain postal vote campaign drop out. But leave campaigns by relying more on social media and sharing would have been affected differently.

It affected not just the moment postal voters voted, but also political momentum and political momentum and focus matters to campaign teams. May had the terror attacks to deal with rather than focusing on the election for several days too.

Remember how Labour at the 2017 election closed the gap on the tories dramatically during the final ten days of the campaign.

So when people vote and how campaigns are structured around that and the methods they use to campaign and events matter hugely - and they affect postal and ballot voters differently.

Does that affect how fair elections ultimately are, is the question.

The real problems are the false statements made, and the interference and money spent from outside sources

So............the poll is a mandate to reverse freedoms accrued over hundreds of years for british people. This 'mandate' was achieved by:

Illegal practices by Leave;
Negligence by EC;
Unmediated AI SM targetted at leave voters from unspecified non british source;
Mysterious funding of Leave campaign;
Voters prevented from voting;
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-disenfranchised-expats-denied

Breach of international agreeements on referendums;
A C Grayling @acgrayling
The notes to the Venice Commission on referendums, to which the UK is a signatory,says “if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin,the vote must be annulled”.

Contradictory pre referendum statements by gov on the mandate that advisory ref would have;
Brexitshambles @brexit_sham
Our Country Gone in Sixty Seconds - David Lidington's infamous confirmation that the EU referendum was ADVISORY only, thereby dismissing the acceptance of Amendment 16 - the need for a supermajority which would have prevented the many being dictated by the few.
twitter.com/brexit_sham/status/972239717281554432

Any more?

No wonder Cadwalladr is coming under such sustained attack.

Poor drafting of the EU ref legislation in general.
No consideration of effect of different results in NI, Scotland, Wales and England and the effect of that.

While this is all quite interesting, there is not much point on dwelling on it as even if a full enquiry were set up, it would get shoved in the long grass and report in 15 years time.
What is far more important is how the hell is the UK going to get itself out of the very deep mire that it is in.
Flash Gordon is a comic book hero and although his help would be appreciated, I think something more substantial is needed.
I have a feeling that the whole of the UK government, all sides, are being 'played' by another force, simply because despite the super egos of the main 'players' (May/BoJo/ERG/Corbyn) none of it really makes sense. The USA/China/Russia are all into meddling with other countries, as was/is the UK. It sounds very 'conspiracy theory' but surely the best part of 600 MPs and the HOL can't all sit relatively quietly while the UK goes down the pan?

there is not much point on dwelling on it
You are dangerously wrong.
They are waving their fictitious 'will of the people' at us.
The 'will' has no legal, political or constitutional mandate.

Based on this flaccid 'will' edl thugs screamed 'liar liar' as an NHS doctor tried to explain the effects of brexit on the NHS in Sunderland yesterday.
twitter.com/DamnBrexit/status/1048700385333039104

A steward of the demonstration was also hit in the face, they drowned out the national anthem and children speaking.

All based on the 'will'.

People who are worried about the integrity of the ref result are campaigning for another ref without rectifying or considering the flaws in our electoral law especially when applied to referendums.

Its a teeny tiny flaw in the plan tbh...

Especially when people who are generally good on history are forgetting the history of Germany and why back to back refs are banned there...

Sorry, I expressed it badly.
Of course any attempt to manipulate the vote must be investigated but my thought is that there are a continual stream of 'smallish' actions going on to distract and more importantly delay any proper dialogue and planning for life after March 29th.
Unusual 'activities' such as the Labour party antisemitism arguments. Not suggesting they aren't valid but why so intense now?
Poisoning in Salisbury, deliberately unsettling to everyone.
Russian 'bungling' various activities. I would expect they are covers for something as government level, of any country is not likely to be quite so foolish.
I can't think of many more now and I am supposed to be doing something useful today, but there is definitely a 'whiff of rodent' about these various things.