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.

Oh, if the Tories Brexit with anything but EEA / EFTA in our future,
then I would be very tempted by Corbyn coming in,
to deprive some Tories of their windfall profits
and also to roll back everything Thatcher did

The Tories would deserve a thorough kicking if they cause such serious economic & social damage
Maybe the way to help the most vulnerable survive Brexit is to have a govt that will pump money in to help them,
rather than one that will choose to give yet more tax cuts to the rich - to persuade them to stay -
and benefit cuts to the poor - because they don't deserve to survive

I would expect that if it had got to the last two and Leasdom hadn't stood down, that the moderate Tories would have voted for May. She seemed a safe if unimaginative pair of hands, prior to gaining the leadership. I imagine that they are sorely disappointed with her now.

Another use for Brexit 50ps:
www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/brexit-50p-coins-can-be-sharpened-and-thrown-at-the-rats-trying-to-steal-your-last-potato-20181029178799

We've seen what happens when people vote for a supposedly more centrist Tory, like Cameron,
when the hard right still control much of the party

As soon as the moderate gets into power, they are controlled by the hard right, e.g. Cameron forced to put the ref into the manifesto and then to actually go through with it

The Tories need to be smashed into bedrock, so that the party expels all traces of the hard right

We need a stake through the vampire's heart, or it will just rise again and take over

The PM snd her Chancellor fighting again:
Budget 2018: No 10 says no deal Brexit no threat to extra spending, despite Hammond implying otherwise

www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2018/oct/29/budget-2018-government-insists-no-deal-brexit-wont-stop-nhs-getting-20bn-despite-hammonds-warnings-politics-live

BigChoc, I would agree that if Brexit were to be cancelled, there would have to be genuine and hard efforts made to identify and attempt to rectify the problems of the country.

Fair points BigChoc, I think I’ve become utterly disillusioned by the woeful lack of any effective opposition from Corbyn but you’re entirely right re benefits cuts. The last thing I would want to see. I’d still find a choice between Corbyn and Greening hard though, mainly because at the moment Brexit is what would really sway my voting. And I still don’t feel I really know where Corbyn and Labour stand on that.

peregrina Only a tiny chance that we are looking at cancellation:
maybe if the markets finally panic, businesses move abroad, the pound crashes, many people get redundancy notices ...

Even so, I expect May - or her successor - would be forced by the hard right to plough on regardless

That's why the hard right must be removed from the party before the Tories becomes a serious choice again:
at key moments, they take over control

We have to look at what happens after Brexit
... unless of course the Tories blunder into a GE before then

Otherwise, we would be deciding post-Brexit, possibly after months of Emergency Powers and the economy crashing downhill

The Tories need to be smashed into bedrock, so that the party expels all traces of the hard right

Something I would dearly love to see! At elections I sometimes do telling stints alongside the Tories. The ones I know would, I think, be horrified if they realised how far the party had lurched to the extreme right. But then, no one is stopping them from thinking, so they only have themselves to blame.

The Tories need to be smashed into bedrock, so that the party expels all traces of the hard right

I would love to see the Tories smashed but what will that do about the population that actually votes for these hard right politics. So many people in this country have authoritarian tendencies, it’s scary.

I agree cancellation of Brexit is now extremely unlikely, and I personally don't hold out any hope of BINO either. Even if either were possible, the damage is done.

We have to look at what happens after Brexit
This has made me think. It’s clear I have a problem in that I have become very tunnel-visioned about Brexit and find it hard to see beyond it.

I agree cancellation of Brexit is now extremely unlikely, and I personally don't hold out any hope of BINO either. Even if either were possible, the damage is done.

So true. We threw away the best option (staying in the EU) and now we’ve lost the chance of all the least-bad options as well.

Anyone want to join me back up that tree? I quite liked it up there.

Started my letter a few days ago, I never know how personal to make it, do I go into the details of DP's illness? Describe the moments when he was gonna die in front of me and i watched how medication literally saved his life? do I print it off and cry over it so it's tear stained?

Okay so the latter might be taking it to far...

Moves along branch...

Here’s the link to the Greening article Mrsr8 sorry didn’t realise I hadn’t posted it...

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/oct/29/justine-greening-hints-at-conservative-leadership-bid-theresa-may?CMP=fb_gu

I must admit that ever since May farted out her Lancaster House speech and ruled out everything except a hard Brexit
especially since she reneged on the NI backstop

I have assumed Brexit will go ahead
and that the fight will be after Brexit, to campaign to join EEA / EFTA and negotiate a Norway+ deal

I also assumed that only a no deal Brexit has any chance of lancing the Brexiter boil on the nation's arse
and bringing about EEA / EFTA

Otherwise, with say a WA and framework to negotiate Canada+,
Brexiters will keep claiming that no deal would have worked and that the problems are because it wasn't a "proper" Brexit, i.e. with no concessions to the EU

However, with the total chaos in govt prepping, I actually think there is now a (tiny) chance of a last minute panic U-turn - without a ref -

and the UK govt either asking to cancel A50,
or - more likely - signing the WA and applying to join EEA / EFTA

The march of the 700,000 will have increased the chance of this
so it was really important, just to increase the courage of Hammond, Grieve, Greening, Soubry et al at a crucial time later this year

^The march of the 700,000 will have increased the chance of this
so it was really important, just to increase the courage of Hammond, Grieve, Greening, Soubry et al at a crucial time later this year^

How do we keep the momentum going, beyond the letter-writing?

We need to talk to people. Even those who would rather ignore it and hope it will all go away...there is no general discourse going on, similar to the link to Dateline London I posted upthread where Michael Goldfarb said the in the USA no one was talking about politics in everyday life.

Marvellous philosopher Mary Midgley (died recently aged 99) famously said that

"Philosophy, is best understood as a form of plumbing."

Our thinking depends on hidden assumptions and we don’t notice this background till things start to go wrong
⁃ until the smell coming up from below is so bad that we are forced to take up the floorboards and do something about itit_.^

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