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.

woman i find that so confusing. Did she have cancer at the time of the vote? Has she changed her stance at all now?

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
KEY DATE ALERT:

Theresa May needs to get thru to Thursday November 1 with the DUP still on board to get her budget through.

That’s the last day of 3 Line Whipped budget votes

Doesn't that sound a long way off.

Sunday's papers are going to be something else this week.

Wrt the previous BSE outbreak and the fallout - no-one who has spent time in the UK (or Ireland) in the 1980s can give blood in the US even still.

I imagine there are farming interests in the US rubbing their hands together with glee at the latest news, because it will make it easier to refuse to import British beef after Brexit.

Wrt the possible fallout from simply walking away from the GFA - it wouldn't look good to do this as the UK seeks to negotiate and sign trade agreements. Would any agreement with the UK be worth the paper it is written on?

@motheroffourdragons I echo your appreciation for @BigChocFrenzy, she's a great poster. And yes, there are many of you I'd be happy to meet for a pint/brew/coffee/cake.

To @10degreestostarboard, yes, I am white. I acknowledge my white male privilege every day. I am also poor. If you check my posting history you will also find that I'm homeless. Luckily not street homeless. I am not interested in policies that make people poorer.

In other news, @Peregrina I'm currently living not too far from Osney Bridge, and there's a heron that visits most evenings. He's bloody magnificent.

Iwould also like to say that along with just about everybody on these threads, BigChoc is a star, it really doesn’t matter what colour, creed, postcode we belong to, earnings bracket we fall into, we or certainly most of us all want one thing.

Well said, Mother.

I won’t name names for fear of missing someone off the list but suffice to say there are many, many posters on those threads for whom I have the deepest admiration.

Thanks to you all for keeping me informed and (relatively!) sane.

Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country’s financial position – they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at a new report from the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have funded all their day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by customers. Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay for shareholders’ dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will be paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly into the pockets of shareholders.

Instead of competitively run utilities, record investment by the private sector and sounder public finances, we have natural monopolies handed over to the wealthy, banks that can dump their liabilities on the public when things get tough, and an outsourcing industry that feasts upon the carcass of the public sector. As if all this weren’t enough, neoliberal voices complain that we need to cut taxes and red tape, and further starve our public services.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/economic-lies-neoliberalism-taxpayers

10 is this the sort of thing you have in mind when you speak of sovereignty?

How about NI civil servants being given ministerial powers?

Or indeed, what say you about the situation where the Prime Minister has to run everything to do with Brexit and also 'confidence and supply' past Arlene Foster before anything can be decided? Just to remind you, the DUP fields no candidates in Britain and got 292,316 votes in NI in the last GE.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-house-prices-property-market-growth-sales-drop-england-wales-latest-a8590626.html?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1539909096
UK house price growth slows again as number of sales plummets

Transactions fell by 16 per cent between August and September, data shows

I'm shocked. Honestly.

would the Labour Party actually do any better if they were now in power?

Labour could hardly do any worse.

Corbyn would probably think now is a great time to nationlise the railways and train services. I wouldn't trust him with my dinner money.
And, much as I despise the DUP, he'd probably aggravate the Unionist community as a whole.

This is the worst time for the government to collapse. A few months earlier, it wouod have tough but ok. A few months later, we could have had some sort of WA that would have given us some breathing space.
Her basically been given a vote of no confidence with the budget etc... is a nightmare.

And why, why are newspaper still having huge titles about ‘fierce backlash’ about extending this or that when we know that most MPs first and foremost want a WA and not a No Deal? Why are the newspapers not reflecting the ideas of the moderate Tory MPs? Surely they are the majority Nd the extreme brexiters thé minority? Or is that actually the MPs just are not representative of the population anymore??

Labour wouodnt do better because it has exactly the same problem. A base that is split between leaving or staying in the uk and a leader that has his own beliefs but is ready to put them aside to stay in power.

I hate the way the ERG has managed to change the vocabulary so that Brexit now means No Deal and niot CU when actually during the campaign for the referendum, this was a totally acceptable option and WAS seen as leaving the EU.
Thé radicalisation is worrying.

Writing hysterical headlines sells papers/advertising space or gets viewers. Like Trump, ERG wankers make great copy.

If Corbyn and his cronies gave a shit, they would be forcing media attention. Instead "for balance" we get footage of Kier Starmer selling his soul piece by piece with these nonsense "six tests" which is Labour speak for fucknose.

Still, gotta look on the bright side:

'But if she announces we are staying in the Customs Union she would be crossing her reddest of red lines because she would have to abandon her ambition of negotiating free trade deals with non-EU countries. Liam Fox would be made redundant'

From the Peston post.

I would just like to say a huge thank you to everyone who posts on here. I am in a fairly consistent state of anxiety about Brexit, and it is so good to see the calm, informed and sensible minds on this thread who make me realise that I am not alone. I will be marching tomorrow and will happily march for anyone who can't be there. I hope it's going to be massive.

Labour could hardly do any worse

Based on recent performance as 'the opposition', I'm sure they'd give the Tories a run for their money on that score.

'Shit show' is a pretty good description for both parties right now.

You and everyone else will be marching for dh and me @UnnecessaryFennel and, more importantly, for my dd.

Wrt the previous BSE outbreak and the fallout - no-one who has spent time in the UK (or Ireland) in the 1980s can give blood in the US even still.

There's a certain amount of hypocrisy there. In the UK we donate blood, there they will buy it and take it from druggies in prison. Unless they have cleaned up their act?

A no-deal Brexit could affect food supplies and see traders bypass Great Britain, the ferry firm Stena Line has warned.

There is "very little readiness" at ports and "anxiety is high", said Ian Hampton senior executive at the global ferry operator.

Stena is the largest ferry operator in the Irish sea and owns three UK ports.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-45906905

No doubt will be ignored as BBC scaremongering.

Gladly, bellini

I think Labour would blunder around, and pay too much attention to what they think their 'heartlands' would want. I don't think though that they would display such hatred to the poor, so some domestic issues would be attended to.

And:

Mr Hampton, chief people and communications officer at Stena Line, was also worried about whether a new computer system to handle customs declarations - known as CDS - or its predecessor, could cope with a sharp increase in volumes following a no-deal Brexit.

"We're concerned about that," he said. "I'm not sure it can. This is a system that was not written for the purpose we're now asking of it and I think that would [create] huge concerns."

I also want to thank those marching tomorrow. Unfortunately I have Dh having an op today (hopefully) so won't be able to attend.

The organisation behind it seems impressive - I know we've got busses laid on coming down from York.