Westministenders: Deadline Day #1

[RedToothBrush]

We have hit another Deadline Day.

As it stands, the EU are looking for more progress. May is digging in her heels by suggesting there is new a requirement for backstop to a backstop. The backstop to all intents and purposes is the GFA. So May is saying in effect, that the EU are forcing her to put in provisions to protect an international agreement we are signed up to, and if we breech it we risk peace in NI.

After lots of noise it seems that the Cabinet have decided to stick by May. For now.

The EU look like they are talking as if their meeting next month will exclude the UK and just go straight to No Deal planning.

There is also other talk of alternatives to allow the UK to stay in the customs union. But theres not much to that and it still doesn't solve the ERG and the DUP problem.

May is vastly unestimating how much the ERG and the DUP want to break the GFA. Which is a huge misjudgment.

There is also talk of the final final Deadline Day actually being Dec 13. For various reasons its not. Thats 29th March.

So Wednesday is Deadline Day #1. Expect more.

talks yes I was thinking that about the extension request too. Signalling she really really wants to keep the WA talks going??

But if the aim is to play for time and land the plane at the very last minute (as per Red’s article earlier, I’m sorry I don’t know how to link it) then why let the press/swivel eyed loons know what she’s doing?

hey, just seen this section - a whole Brexit sub forum

I should post here instead - can't see the point in the delay, like, if they can't deliver on Ireland border now, how will it be any diff 1 yr down the road ?

Sorry @Peregrina , going to have to disagree with you here. There is no brightside to an outbreak of BSE. It's a bloody catastrophe. Don't know how old you are or how well you remember the last one. I shudder to think we are going down that road as well as the other dreadful Brexit road we are going down.

I wonder what the "will of the people" of the EU is ? (Apart from unprintable). I've read that 52% are happy with no deal ...

The extension to the transition is recognition that trade deals normally take 5-15 years to negotiate.

So the original 20 months suggested was never going to be enough,
once May ruled out EEA / EFTA 9which would be much quicer to customise than all the other options)

However, the first step is to get a Withdrawal Agreement,
because without that there will be no transition, just a no deal crash over the cliff edge on 11 pm, 29 March 2019

There would also be no immediate trade negotiations afterwards,
because the EU - particularly Ireland - would insist on the main issues, such as the NI backstop, being agreed, before they would even start negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal

So to clarify, the one year extension is to the transition, which would only come after a WA,
with NI backstop (unelss Ireland backs down)

There has so far been no proposed extension to the 2-year A50 period before Brexit, during which the WA is supposed to be negotiated and signed.

Any A50 extension would have to be agreed unanimously by the UK and all 27 remainng EU members
Currently, there is no push for that.

Farage on Sky News was trying to suggest that A50 should be suspended (his choice of word) for a few months so that the UK could have more time to negotiate and that that would then allow the UK to participate in the next EU elections.

He tried to claim that the last thing he wanted was to be re-elected as an MEP but that needs must (Oh, I wish I could access the "crying with laughter" emoticon in the app )

DG I dint know what is te will of the people in the EU but I do ‘ow that people are getting fed up with Britain antics, always wanting to be different and getting their own way.
They are also fed up of a country that is consistently trying to stop the EU moving forward.
As far as I can tell, They aren’t worried about the economic impact either. Not reported in the newspapers that I have seen. And nor is it seen as something important either.

A case of mad cow disease will make them even less likely to want beef from the uk to circulate freely btw. I wasn’t in the uk then but I remember clearly that the worry was all about british beef and ‘we’ had to change the way we are eating because of them (before that you could find brain sold in supermarket, bowels used for sausages etc etc)

I was hoping for good old british beef.

I know this was posted a few pages ago but ... why on earth would you assume (as standard - I'm sure some people have it, but they are a minority) someone was serving beef at Christmas? Unless you had literally never experienced Christmas in Britain and so didn't really know what our customs were... now why might that be?

We really don't want BSE again, regardless of global warming etc

Lst count was 156 people in the UK died of vCJD, caused by cattle with BSE
About 10 died in total in other EU countries

There was even one cow found with BSE in the US - shows how it can spread - but afaik noone died there,; only the herd was slaughtered.

There were still 10-15 deaths per year in the UK until the early 2000s - I don't know if there have been any deaths since 2010

BSE ended up costing billions to the Uk economy and bankrupting some farmers.

About 5 million cattle were slaughtered as a precautionary measure in the UK

• TV around the world showed massive amounts of smoke across whole areas.

Beef consumption plummetted for years and British beef never regained its former sales in Europe or some other countries

• That's why even the DUP kept referring to Irish beef, not NI or British beef, especially during the BSE epidemic.

can't see the point in the delay, like, if they can't deliver on Ireland border now, how will it be any diff 1 yr down the road ?

I once worked on quite a big project with lots of insurance brokers. They had to sign up in order to go live on the platform. My boss gave an explicit order that no broker could go live without a signed agreement that had been lodged with ourselves, and our parent companies legal department.

The amount of whinging and whining this caused ... but, as my boss said ... if we put them live before they've signed, why would they then bother signing ?

I wonder what the "will of the people" of the EU is ? (Apart from unprintable). I've read that 52% are happy with no deal ...

Bored to tears and counting down the minutes until we fuck off so they can get on with more important matters. My mate is a Swedish politician and he said that this side most of the no-deal work is done. The consensus is that it'll be rough for a few days as everything kicks in, but it'll be business as usual within 5 days.

I want brexit done with so that my Swedish friends stop sending me gifs of headless chickens.

Don't know how old you are or how well you remember the last one. I shudder to think we are going down that road as well as the other dreadful Brexit road we are going down.

Sorry, perhaps not a good comment. I remember it well being in my sixties. The worst thing was it was brewing away for a few years and insufficient notice was taken. Then there was foot and mouth where sadly DHs cousin lost all his animals when the neighbouring farm got it. A friends father wasn't able to send his animals to market because of F & M. So yes, I remember both. That is the worry, sound animal husbandry would prevent a lot of it, but increases the cost.

Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak
Bet you a fiver Tory MPs try to stick an amendment on the finance bill that somehow tries to rule out any extra payment to EU, to kill off the possibility of an extension to the transition

RE BSE, I seem to recall talk of Brexiteers getting excited about a new chapter in exporting to Japan (? could have been someone else) and how they would drop their ban on British beef.

The scariest thing about the BSE crisis is that it may not be over. A friend at the time was a very senior NHS planner. He told me that it was a time bomb waiting to go off and the NHS were planning for it going off in around 30-40 years. According to him the worst hasn't hit us yet.

Darren McCaffrey @DarrenEuronews
Irish sources:
EU willing to alter the controversial backstop to make it UK-wide as requested.
However will take some time to prepare, in meantime they will look to put a clause in Withdrawal Agreement committing the EU to creating a UK-wide backstop... via @ShonaMurray_

Bet you a fiver Tory MPs try to stick an amendment on the finance bill

Is this the budget, which may not get passed ?

I had my flu jab this morning - I have it every year

imo, this is somehing everyone should consider doing as part of Brexit prep, if they are able.
Even if it's not something you've done until now.
As well as reducing your own risk of becoming quite ill, you also reduce the chance of spreading it to others

Do you agree, Bellini ?

The Scottish Chief Vet was very reassuring: there are 3 other cows and a calf in the herd and they will all be/have been killed and will be examined for BSE. The food stuff has been examined and they are confident that it is not the source (it was solely grass fed herd?) .

She said it might end up being deemed a spontaneous genetic variant - but that they are still doing a full investigation.

Barnier has always wanted us in the SM+CU
Failing that, his staircase PPT only excluded a CU because of UK red lines

So, the big question is whether May has agreed to all the usual conditions for a CU with the EU.
or whether she has been has to leverage the NI border issue to persuade the EU to drop some conditions,
e.g. the ECJ, obeying all the regulations.

Before, the EU wer concerned that the UK could gain unfair competitive advantage,
e.g. by dropping environmental and workers' protections - which Tory Brexiters have as one of their main aims for Brexit -
while enjoying the advantages of the CU

However, the EU may have decided that without the SM as well, the CU alone doesn't bring sufficient disadvantage to their own businesses to outweigh their wish to protect Ireland from a WTO border.

Thanks for the clarity, bigchoc I was confusion the extension issue somewhat!

I had a colleague whose friend died of BSE c. 2007. I can still remember the way my colleague looked when he returned to work after visiting his friend for the last time in hospital. It’s a terrible disease.

Totally agree @BigChocFrenzy . I have MS so I get a free flu jab every year anyway.
Flu is not a "heavy cold". If you are taken out of action by flu or your whole family is at a crucial time, no one will help you.

Bollocks I read gifts of headless chickens and thought it mean and rather extreme of your Swedish friends. Then I worried about the packaging and what happened to the heads. Then I re read your post.

Ben Bradshaw @BenPBradshaw
“We do not know what they want. They do not know themselves what they want. That is the problem.” The president of Lithuania on May’s Government after last night’s summit. #BrexitShambles #PeoplesVote

Gavin Esler @gavinesler
Here in Brussels there is bemusement and alarm that a British Government which does not know what it wants keeps asking EU leaders to help them deliver it. Respect has gone. Pity is in evidence. And increasing impatience.