Westministenders: The Slow Reveal

[RedToothBrush]

The DUP are playing silly buggers.
The EU are getting nervous and turning down the pressure.
The ERG still want Schroedingers Brexit.
The Budget is coming. So is a government defeat or climb down.
The M26 is closing.

Keep thinking of the glorious freedom your blue passport will give up whilst you search waste tips.

Alex Wickham @ alexwickham
No10/Dexeu joint statement:

“In the last few days UK and EU negotiators have made real progress in a number of key areas. However there remain a number of unresolved issues relating to the backstop. The UK is still committed to making progress at the October European Council.”

Being pointed out that its weird for a joint statement. Implies two different groups with equal status / authority.

Thanks BCF. It is what it is, and the EU27 can see it clearly too.

Implies two different groups with equal status / authority
Yikes. That's making it all a bit too obvious.

Maybe what happened:

We are exactly where you'd expect with brinkmanship politics.

I think that statement says more than it appears. May is no longer headed up Brexit negotiations and the Cabinet Office is now obsolete as Dexeu has taken over.

May decided that the Cabinet office role was in negotiations and DExEU role was in domestic implementation only so time back.

So if there is nothing agreed and DExEU are now taking the lead they don't anticipate a deal. Regardless of what's being said.

Brexit has always been about the NI border. Its not offering any surprises is it?

Well this is ominous

James Forsyth @ jgforsyth
A message from the Chief Whip...

Julian Smith MP @ juliansmithuk

No message just this image

The columnist @ sime0nstylites
Brace for tsunami of awful, time wasting and generally pointless opinion column takes tomorrow.

Wave after wave of ‘stand your ground’ and ‘we showed them’ and ‘this lady’s not for turning.’

With a small number of conspicuous exceptions (you know who you are), their informational value (leaving aside epistemological considerations) is approximately 0.

It’s worth looking at tomorrow’s newspapers and highlighting the good takes - by which I mean, thoughtful, not distortingly partisan, creative and analytical.

A joyful week ahead.

What the hell does that mean? Like you say ominous. What the hell is going on.

Ffs

Jeremy hunt @jeremyhunt
It’s worth looking at tomorrow’s newspapers and highlighting the good takes - by which I mean, thoughtful, not distortingly partisan, creative and analytical.

Sorry Jeremy didn't say that. He said

Challenged a few of my fellow foreign ministers to navigate the Chevening maze in the rain...by comparison to which Brexit discussions seem more straightforward

With the above pic.

I'm taking that photo to mean off the hook. But in what way? In that mps won't have to be whipped to vote through the deal?

Or he's taken his phone off the hook so no one can ring him?

Or there is no deal for him to have to whip?

Big Brother is trying to watch you but their tech doesn't work and its invading your privacy.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/police-defended-using-secret-spy-15279859
The police have defended using secret spy cameras in the Trafford Centre - this is what they said

The pilot programme was suspended after concerns were raised by the Surveillance Camera Commissioner

Michel Barnier @MichelBarnier
We met today @DominicRaab and UK negotiating team. Despite intense efforts, some key issues are still open, including the backstop for IE/NI to avoid a hard border. I will debrief the EU27 and @Europarl_EN on the #Brexit negotiations.

Douglas Carswell @DouglasCarswell
Translation: Dom Raab wouldn’t agree with what Olly Robbins promised Michel Barnier Raab would agree to.

Sky news reporting before the announcement ran with the angle that Robbins was too clever: a really english slur.

We are now seeing the collision of criminality and constitutionality.

The "threat" from Mundell and Davidson shows just how rattled they are about the future of the Union

The Uk is the only country I know where something like
"too clever by half"
is an insult

@tconnellyRTE
Here’s a quick take on where we are: a draft text worked on last week, with buy in from EU + UK negotiators, included a UK-wide customs arrangement. That wd allow references to NI being part of the EU’s customs territory to be airbrushed out, to make it more palatable to the UK

However, the UK demand for the UK-wide backstop for customs to be time limited is still being fiercely resisted by Brussels and Dublin, who say the backstop must be “unless and until” something better comes along (Dublin also insists the UK signed up to that in Dec and March)

But there appear to be other reservations that the UK-wide backstop, being tucked into the Withdrawal Agreement, will give the UK a de facto competitive advantage this side of an FTA - the usual “level playing field” issues.

There was a sense at the Coreper meeting (EU ambassadors) that the chaos in Westminster has to be given time to work itself through, and for dust to settle. So, rushing a deal this weekend was seen as not a good idea..

But nor will member states want to wait too long for the next rendezvous. Bearing in mind Salzburg, which became a portentous landmark that grew in weight, I suspect they will fix another date to get the Withdrawal Agreement over the line that will be sooner rather than later.

Barnier - who was given a clear mandate by the E27 and who checks back with them at need -
must be so exasperated at the bungling amateurism of the UK side

Ditto the EU commission and about 25 of the 27 members
Brexit may be helping EU unity - united in exasperation

Reunited Ireland it is then, one way or the other.

"A message from the Chief Whip..."

It's just so fucking childish, from one of the supposed adults in the room. How can you enforce party discipline if you have no personal discipline and such poor judgement?

So Raab has been stronger than May was? Pity then she didn't hang on to Davis, because she could at least dominate him.

If we get a reunited Ireland then that is May and Cameron's reputation trashed, by their own hands, however much they try to blame the EU, and I will shed no tears for either of them.

UK will see three years of low growth, says EY Item Club

EY chief economist Mark Gregory said: "The UK economy is going to experience a period of low economic growth for at least the next three years, and businesses need to recognise this and adjust accordingly.

"They should also consider a sharp downside to the economy in the event of a no-deal Brexit and make preparations for such a scenario."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45858107

Now tell me again, where are the sunlit uplands?

Saw this slightly earlier. Just as I went to copy it here, I saw the response below

@bbclaurak
No 10 sources suggest this morning talks broke down y'day because EU won't accept UK wide backstop without their original backstop in place too - yes, a second 'backstop', in case the UK version isn't ready in time (apols if your head hurts)

@NicolaSturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon Retweeted Laura Kuenssberg
What is hard to understand about this is why it comes as a surprise to the UK government - have they really been paying so little attention?

The Guardian opines:
The British government is facing huge domestic opposition to its proposal for a UK-wide, but temporary, customs union with the EU within the backstop, in which Northern Ireland would stay within the single market.

No, the opposition is within the Tory party, that is not domestic opposition, unless that is just a sloppily written paragraph. Remainers aren't opposed and the Leavers have mostly failed to say what they want, being more concerned to rewrite history. Most people are sick to death of the goings on in the Tory party. I just want May to be out now, and have a GE which produces a hung Parliament in which no party is capable of forming a Government, and then they might begin to grow up, have a proper Coalition, and start to consider the good of the country.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ab44845a-cffe-11e8-b8d4-d6fb90acb7b1
Brexit talks break up amid border impasse
Start implementing no-deal plans now, urge mandarins

Ministers have been told to start implementing plans for a no-deal Brexit within weeks as last-ditch talks in Brussels between Britain and the EU broke up after little more than an hour.