Westminstenders: Crisis. What Crisis

[RedToothBrush]

October is slowly rolling into November.

Your eyes, rightly, will be distracted by events the other side of the pond.

It won't be good and it won't be pretty and it will have an impact on what happens here in relation to Brexit in one way or another.

May seems to have headed off trouble makers for now. But that means nothing if she can't get a deal through parliament.

And if you think we are in anyway prepared for No Deal I'd like whatever drugs you are taking. That way lies only disorder and to put it bluntly, deaths.

We MUST find a deal, any deal to prevent that. Desperation is the final ingredients in this mess. Who will blink as they realise what's at stake?

The problem is though, is too few MPs have grasped what's at state, such is the quality of our elected representatives. And that's the truly terrifying bit.

If they can't work out the risk of no deal, they certainly not equipped to handle the fall out of no deal.

If you want to shit yourself anymore, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that the minister responsible for hauling all your food and medical supplies in the event if no deal, is Mr Christopher Grayling.

Start praying.

@Andrew_Adonis
6 months ago the BBC’s editorial committee banned a documentary team from working with me on the campaign for a people’s vote, tho filming was commissioned & underway. They didn’t want to offend No 10 & claimed the people’s vote had no support

That doesn’t look such a good call

Labour party NDAs?

^Socialist Workers Party leadership under fire over rape kangaroo court
Woman says she was asked about her sexual past branded a slut by senior party members after she accused one of rape^

The young female member in the latest case says that the senior party member had physically abused her in front of other party members. Then, she claims, in early 2011 the male organiser pressured her into meeting and then raped her in her bedroom

She felt that if she'd gone to the authorities, she would have be expelled from the party, because of the SWP's hostility to the police. "If you go to the police you get kicked out automatically," she said

www.theguardian.com/society/2013/mar/09/socialist-workers-party-rape-kangaroo-court

Pithy accurate chronically depressing article DGR.

Real stuff is now happening that might wake up the fantasists.

It may wake the fantasists but it won't wake the fanatics. We are doomed.

Despite the recent march, and the Independent petition reaching one million I do think that resignation and defeat has replaced the fire of resistance in many remainers' bellys.

I think the prolonged absence of any news on Brexit from the BBC means it's probably coughing up blood right now.

Despite the recent march, and the Independent petition reaching one million I do think that resignation and defeat has replaced the fire of resistance in many remainers' bellys.

I am not sure. I think it gave some of us new heart. A march which had seven times the number of expected demonstrators, and many of us knew we were representing others. The challenge now is to keep up the momentum. I expect the country to face either disaster or severe decline and in 20 years time I want to be able to say to my grandson that I did what I could to stop it. If I am wrong and suddenly it's all hunky dory like the Leavers assure us it will be, then the worst I did was inconvenience a few motorists on Saturday when roads were closed.

The number of NDAs is terrifying. I honestly had no idea so much was being hidden from the public.

They are now effectively standard in local government because of outsourcing too

In the past you could in theory FOI most things, but with outsourcing you can't because contacts are hidden due to 'commercial sensitivity'. This applies to councils of all colours.

It's bonkers and I have no Idea how that's in the public interest.

You might also want to reflect on the abolition of the National Audit Office which used to scrutise local government spending. The defence at the time was the public could all act as armchair auditors.

Which of course relies on the information they need to do that being freely available. Which of course its not.

It gets worse

We have a situation locally where the library group isn't run by the council. It's run by a separate organisation. Which is 100% owned by the council. The council have been resisting FOI which all government bodies are covered by, by claiming its not a council body therefore they don't have to.

It's been looking for a while short of a legal challenge they will get away with it.

They tried to close down several libraries not too long ago. The numbers they provided were nonsense and every time numbers have been forthcoming, it looks more and more like financial mismanagement.

It's EVERYWHERE.

They are up there with Pfi.

I just keep seeing little things that make me see a massive far right resurgence. Just little things. And nothing to do with the US, but that's never going to help.

An article posted earlier suggested some Trump supporters think the pipe bombs were a liberal conspiracy.

“I bet $500 they are lying,” he said. “I bet it was a liberal who did it. Have you stopped to think why those bombs were only sent to high-level Democrats? They are trying to make it look like Donald Trump is encouraging terrorism.”
He added: “The truth is, the liberals are the terrorists.” His wife agreed. “It seems like a lot’s been planted to make it look like a Trump supporter did it,” said Carrie Pennington, 48.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/26/trump-supporters-sceptical-about-pipe-bomb-arrest

It makes me think that some people have actually been brainwashed. How do politicians, orators and powerful people get so many folk to believe the improbable and contradictory things they’re claiming?
Like Rees-Mogg saying Remainers are elitists, when he is clearly of the ‘elite’ himself. An older relative of mine actually thinks Mogg and Farage are ‘men of the people, and on our side’.

How can this happen?

It’s like the so-called ‘nanny-state’. Rich, powerful people convincing ordinary folk that rules, regulations and policies, which are designed to protect them, are actually the unwelcome interference of the ‘nanny-state’. An interesting episode of Word of Mouth this week had Stuart Maconie claiming that those who moan about the ‘nanny state’ are the ones who actually had nannies. I think he’s right.

So why do we fall for this ridiculous rhetoric?

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000t40

Yes I agree Peregrina I want to be able to say to my children that I did what I could. I will keep fighting. I just sense that disbelief and resistance have slowly been eroded by becoming sort of inured to the acute act of self sabotage.

Out for Xmas (or Halloween ...)

lonely For those with the 'fire in their belly'

Today is Οχι Day in Greece.

At 3 a.m. on the morning of October 28th, 1940, Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador to Greece, delivered an ultimatum from Benito Mussolini to Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas. Il Duce demanded that Metaxas allow the Italian army free passage to enter and occupy strategic sites in Greece unopposed

Faced with this demand, Metaxas delivered an unequivocal response in French, the diplomatic language of the day, “Alors, c’est la guerre.” This brief phrase, “Then, it is war,” was quickly transmuted into the laconic “Oxi,” the Greek for No, by the citizens of Athens

Paying homage to the Greek resistance Winston Churchill reportedly said “…until now we would say that the Greeks fight like heroes. From now on we will say that heroes fight like Greeks

Greece 'lost' the battle against the Nazis.

They saved northern Europe and Russia by a prolongued and successful resistance.

The strength of their resistance was due to their grass roots organisation and knowledge of the localities. And an innate moral sense.

www.keeptalkinggreece.com/2018/10/28/oxi-day-greece-metaxas-address-nation-italy/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&

They are now effectively standard in local government because of outsourcing too
People express surprise when they find out what's happening in our hospitals, schools and social services.

The reason that we are living in ignorance about our local services is the industrial use of a range of silencing orders on workers.

Stalin and Mao would have loved them.

It's also the moral ambivolence of those who choose silence and apathy.

They are for more useful to an oppressive regime than a few stven lennons.

Yes an innate moral sense, knowledge and information are needed to fight silence which feeds apathy. Apathy is dangerous.

I think as a country we have no good options.

I think the best thing would be EEA + EFTA staying in the SM and CU, this would mean keeping FOM which was the whole point of the vote for most leavers so many people won't be have and racist groups will be furious (and violent). We might be better of WITHOUT a so called 'seat at the table' though given that a significant proportion of our MEPs are Ukip who seem to want to do as much damage to the UKs interests as possible so they can then come back to the UK and say how terrible the EU are. Example is Nigel Farage's membership on the EU's fisheries committee.

The number of NDAs is terrifying. I honestly had no idea so much was being hidden from the public.

Regarding NDAs it does seem sinister when the state tries to keep matters quiet. The public have a right to know what type of beast is governing them. Isn't there a distinction between broad NDAs with companies engaged by the govt and individual employee issues though?

The NDAs in agreements with businesses who have been asked to help deal with a no deal crisis are wrong. E.g. we have a right to know just how many portaloos are needed on the Kent lorry parks.Similarly isn't there a right to know what the gov promised Nissan?

But perhaps there’s a difference with agreements for individual, departing employees.

It is completely standard when employers and employees have a dispute to put certain clauses in the settlement agreement. Commonly both the parties promise not to speak detrimentally about the other one.

All employers normally have a clause to stop employees from telling others about the settlement agreement and how much of a pay off they got. Employers don’t want to set a precedent for making sizeable payments.

Confidentiality clauses which state that the employee cannot tell anyone about the agreement and its terms are standard. So political parties the govt doing this is slightly more excusable as it’s standard practice? But then there is a moral argument that political parties/ the state should be more transparent than a normal employer.

Where the employee has been a trouble maker but still got a payoff - then it seems acceptable to keep things confidential. Where the employer has done something appalling like harassment and discrimination then the standard confidentiality clauses seem less acceptable.

I think one needs to look at each context and the wording of the gagging or secrecy clause to assess why it has been used. Where is it on the spectrum between standard practice and state silencing.
The current gov has been exceptionally secretive, for example suppressing the elusive impact assessments when by contrast the EU were publishing theirs on their website.

Oh FFS

"A study by King’s College London of attitudes to Brexit found that 42 per cent of people who had heard of the claim still believe it is true, while just 36 per cent thought it was false and 22 per cent were unsure."

It says this is a new study but is it really as Kings did one in 2017.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/vote-leave-brexit-lies-eu-pay-money-remain-poll-boris-johnson-a8603646.html

For some reason, I am starting to remember the Matrix-Churchill trial, a while back ...

Basically, there were secret documents which the government withheld from the court which completely exonerated the defendants.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms-to-Iraq

add that level of insouciance to a legal system which has the death penalty, and you've pretty much managed to jump back a few centuries in a single bound.

Note: nobody was ever held to account for the perversion of justice outlined above. Maybe that will make you feel a little different about your friends swapping tales about 'who was driving' . But that's the modern way isn't it ? We transgress and 'lessons must be learned'. You transgress and it's the big house for you.

What someone should do is draw up an NDA which explicitly seeks to prevent a subject testifying in any criminal case, and the put it to the test. Imaginative activism.

ukandeu.ac.uk/public-wrong-on-key-facts-around-brexit-and-impact-of-eu-membership-new-study-finds/

This is worth a look.

	EU immigrants’ contribution to public finances: Only 29% of the public correctly think that immigrants from European countries pay £4.7bn more in taxes than they receive in welfare benefits and services. Leave supporters are least likely to correctly identify that this is the case (16%) and most likely to wrongly think that European immigrants contribute less than they take out (42%).
	Crime: 56% of the public and 75% of Leave supporters think that European immigration has increased crime levels, when evidence from the MAC report finds no link.
	Healthcare: 39% of the public and 53% of Leave supporters think that European immigration has led to a decline in the quality of healthcare services in the UK, when evidence from the MAC report shows this isn’t the case.
	£350m claim: Two-thirds of the public (67%) have heard of the claim that the UK sends £350m a week to the EU, and 42% of these believe it is true, despite it being labelled a “misuse of statistics” by the UK Statistics Authority.
	EU investment: The public hugely underestimate how much of our investment comes from EU countries: the average guess is 36%, when the actual figure was 63% in 2016.
	Unemployment: Half of the public (47%) and 61% of Leave supporters believe that unemployment among lower-skilled workers has increased as a result of European immigration, despite the MAC report concluding there is “little or no impact”.
	Immigration levels: People overestimate the proportion of the UK population that is from an EU country by a factor of almost three, thinking it’s 16% when it’s only 6%.

Shame the research lead is called Duff.

{The chancellor says the budget tomorrow will set out the government's spending plans.

He adds that "once we get a smooth exit from the EU" the government will be able to show the British people that the end of austerity is in sight.}

To have a situation that is horrible, but you can see a clear path for extracting yourself is one thing but for Mr Hammond to be pedaling such horseshit is beyond belief.
So he can find money to fill in potholes (good) but unfortunately many hundreds of thousands are at risk of losing their jobs and the country is going to be all but 'stuffed'.
Smooth Brexit when no one has actually defined properly what 'Brexit' is.

Re apathy - It ent over till it's over. And as remainers get worn down more leavers start questioning. I was reassured by the lot I know whose bench mark was the meds, they wanted lives to improve and mistakenly thought leaving the EU would do that they really didn't vote for more suffering or death. My hope is as remainers lose hope ex-leavers will take up the baton.

Matrix-Churchill trial
Excellent case. Excellent Chambers. Tested, bravely the extent of Public Interest Immunity. They are a rock star chambers in my books.

It is a shame no one can 'reveal' just one of the NDAs signed by Nisssan, Airbus or BMW for example, which would blow the whole thing up completely.
Just one little 'wikileak' would do it.

This made me chuckle

Brief delurk. I had my hair done yesterday. We live in a naice are in the SE. There was a woman in her 60s who looked very proper and well off. She had a 20 minute loud rant about how the EU take our money, we don't know what our money is used for and all sorts of other things, basically a loud hateful tirade about the EU.

I haven't heard people discussing Brexit loudly and proudly in public in this way since the day after the referendum. She went on and on her poor hairdresser assuming that everyone in the salon would nod along and agree with her extreme, paranoid and ill-informed views.

I thought about it for a while and realise that she sounded brainwashed and fanatical. Probably a torigraph reader rather than daily mail. Hateful and fanatical with a clear 'us and them' world view and the EU as our enemy.

This led me to think about the concept of enemy

From wiki

An enemy or a foe is an individual or a group that is verified as forcefully adverse or threatening. The concept of an enemy has been observed to be "basic for both individuals and communities". The term "enemy" serves the social function of designating a particular entity as a threat, thereby invoking an intense emotional response to that entity.

The term enemy is derived from Latin for "bad friend" (Latin: inimicus)."Enemy" is a strong word, and "emotions associated with the enemy would include anger, hatred, frustration, envy, jealousy, fear, distrust, and possibly grudging respect". As a political concept, an enemy is likely to be met with hate, violence, battle and war.

red i had this conversation with dh this morning, there is a right wing / racist / nationalist movement occurring in the US and EU, as we speak.

We are experiencing right-wing propaganda on a massive scale.

Problem is, if we do face food and medicine shortages Leavers will believe what they are told, that the EU is punishing us and deliberately blockading supplies instead of the truth, that this is what WTO rules look like when you don't have capacity to deal with it. This lie is already being peddled by Brexiteer politicians, people will be live it and it will drive even more anti EU feeling.

Real stuff is now happening that might wake up the fantasists.

I dint think it’s the fantaisies that are waking up either.
I think fanatics are been made, right under our nose and we are doing (or can’t do??) anything about it.
Thanks to the internet, people living in an Internet bubble and a full on propaganda (are we thinking Russia again or is there another country/group that has much interest indestabilising the U.K., and the US?).

The U.K. has another issue which is that a lot of those ‘totalitarian’ tools (such as the one mentioned by RTB re scrutiny of government spending, NDA etc...) have been put in place a long time ago wo any one/the PRESS not saying a word about it.
That’s what, IMO, makes it so hard now to fight against Brexit too. And why the democratic system I in such a bad state

Xpost
YY about right wing propaganda.

Now what do you do to fight propaganda?
Reminding people of the truth isn’t working (see the reaction of leavers about pointing out all the issues linked with Brexit etc...).
So what else can we do?