Westministenders: Game Over?

[RedToothBrush]

May has a draft deal which she has presented to the Cabinet. Woohooo!

The catch is, it doesn't mention the Irish Border. Just a minor point. This is because she has no way forward on it. There are so many red lines from so many different groups shes tangled up in knots with them.

She wrote a letter to the DUP to tell them to suck it up. Arlene has told her to stick it. And if she hadn't told her to stick it, Scottish Tories would have told her to stick it. David Davis has told her to stick it. Rees-Moog has told her to stick it. And this afternoon, one of the Ministers for Queues at Dover, Jo Johnson, told her to stick it and that we need a people's vote. On top of that, her plans to try and get cross party support and get the Labour Party to support it, have suffered a blow as Momentum voted to tell May to stick it.

In fact it might be harder to think of people who WILL support it.

Not that this is a surprise. We've all be aware of this for some time. Is it finally game over?

The government have at least seemingly realised that this month is the last opportunity they have for a deal. Dominic has also realised that Dover is quite close to France and this is quite a big deal.

The EU pushed back their meeting until the 27th. This coincidentally is the same day there is a decision over a50 at the ECJ and the right to revoke.

If May can't get her act together over the Irish Border, this might yet prove to be the last option open to her, to prevent Brexmaggeddon.

Jo Johnson is not too far from the mark with vassalage or chaos? Take your pick Mrs May.

Well it looks to me that it is all over now.

If it isn't there will be a leadership challenge (who would want to be PM now), and possibly a GE.

But in fairness EU said things could be pushed out if there was a GE. So we shall see.

Has no one learned from the "don't prosecute" letters the IRA had during Camerons dismal reign ?

They were a Blair invention, and were only supposed to be issued to people who were no longer wanted in connection with an active investigation. There was a fuck up and one was issued by mistake to someone who very much was wanted - though IIRC he has now been arrested for something else

It would be perfectly possibly to pass a law pardoning all crimes committed during the Troubles

Not quite - pardons are issued by Royal Prerogative. Many have already been issued in connection with the Troubles - including to one Rev Ian Paisley, back in the 1970s

Various people have suggested over the years that we need something like the Truth & Reconciliation Commission that was set up in South Africa. Maybe we're not quite ready for it yet?

Were the Westminister DUP MPs implicated in cash for ash or was it only Stormont MLAs? I don’t think there is much love lost between the 2 groups.

@BigChocFrenzy , there is no way Corbyn can get a three line whip on this requiring MPs to vote in the way he wants. Given his track record of ignoring three line whips as a back bencher, I assume/hope that MPs will vote as their conscience dictates. I may not agree with what each decided but it doesn't mean he gets to say how they should vote.

Weren't PLP whipped in the A50 vote? And even if they aren't whipped most Labour MPs are petrified of Jeremy (and his huge mandate - huge eye-roll from me) and their imaginary even now leave-voting majority.

They were indeed whipped on the A50 vote - yet 20% of the Labour MPs defied the three line whip

I don't have any confidence of Corbyn having the control necessary - even if he did oppose the deal (which almost definitely doesn't meet the Six Tests because only Remain would ), which is by no means a given because he's an arse

Just posted this on the site page. A copy here in case I get banned.

Like it or not Brexit IS a massive deal for every person and especially children in the UK AND the whole of Europe. European taxes are rising to cover the cost of the Brexit exercise (£400 per person in Holland). It also has minor ripples across ALL countries. Stick your fingers in your ears if you wish, but it is a major deal. People WILL die due to some of the effects, be it delayed medicine, shortage of NHS staff or whatever. Joe Cox was just the first.

Copied from part of MNHQ post a page or so ago.

{There are some interesting points on this thread though, such as the comment someone made about the Brexit board being a bit too 'hidden away'. We will have a think about that. If anyone else has any other ideas on how we can improve things for everyone please do share them, we are reading.}

I, and I believe a couple of others contacted MNHQ 4 or 5 months ago requesting a 'Brexit' button moderately prominent on the home page. Somewhere on the top blue bar would be ideal.
Obviously their powers of thinking aren't that hot (I may well get banned again for saying so). I would point out the hypocrisy of MNHQ having their 'podcast event' in a large box on the home page for over a week.

Annadale I was raging too. I do think there were many factors but I agree the blame lies with Cameron for calling the referendum and the likes of Johnson for capitalising on people’s ignorance of the actual facts. Cambridge Analytica, foreign interference etc all played a part, but they were only able to because idiot Cameron called it in the first place. I’d also add the Telegraph, Mail, Express and Sun for decades of anti-EU campaigning and blatant lies.

John McDonnell on LBC saying if can't get election, will go for a PV.

My feeling: ERG and fellow-travellers are crumbling and this deal will squeak through, so no PV. ☹️

Still ... I'm going to keep fighting. I've been canvassing and campaigning for a PV, and I'm not going to stop. However unlikely it seems.

Damn it - there's too much at stake to just roll over.

That said, tonight I am so, so full of rage for Boris Johnson, the mainstream media (BBC especially) and bloody Cameron.

I feel like a black hole of rage - sucking light from anything near me.

cat I read your PV all that post as PIV ! 😳
< sorry, irrelevant, just showing how my mind crawls along in the gutter >

I lay a fair bit of blame on Corbyn and McDonnell.
1 of the most frustrating things about Brexit is that there were so so many ways of it being stopped. It's been a perfect storm of the wrong people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Our nice, liberal type German friends are so happy about how things are in Germany at the moment (the right wingers are manageable). Their society actually works. It's like a different world.

Olennas I've often wondered about a Truth & Reconciliation Commission, but the bitterness in NI runs so deep that I think it would just be a blame fest on each side

re "pardons":
we could call it something else, but functionally a blanket amnesty - instead of stupid letters - so that noone on either side, terrorists or the security forces, would face prosecution for crimes committed before the GFA was signed.

Just let people, some of them very old, deal with their own conscience and let the middle-aged ones continue their new lives without prison hanging over them.

Another possibility is to allow trials, but with any sentence to be suspended unless & until convicted of a non-related crime of violence that had a possible maximum sentence of say 2 years.
That would probably make almost all trials meaningless and the CPS unlikely to proceed, but as it still has the possibility to reignite old wounds, I would prefer complete amnesty.

Parliament can pass anything it wants, especially as part of a treaty with the RoI

No one cares about the UK. That is the tragedy of their own making now.

So UK has to come up with its own solution. And there will be compromise, there has to be.

So unnecessary really. But there we are.

I am so looking forward to all the benefits of this. Huh.

NI really wants to stay in EU.

So maybe Snarlene et al will be paid off i.e will not be called to account for the ash for cash. Worth a couple of billion for the rest of us.

The speculated deal is awful and being from Scotland it'll decimate the economy here. God know what's going to happen now but I doubt it'll get through parliament, hopefully a PV will follow although the Qs may be no deal or May's deal, that'd be awful and nuts.

Thomasina The turning point, imo, was when MrsT and the Tory rightwing convinced people that income tax was oppressive

Germans almost all agree they should pay sufficient taxes to fund public services properly
The centre-right CDU / CSU hold to the "social contract" as part of the "Christian" base of their politics

It is also significant that all sections of German politics prioritise manufacturing and longterm planning in its economy,
whereas the UK ruling class since the late 19thC has looked down on manufacturing and only thinks of the next quarter's profits.

Hence the very different state of the economy and the budget between the 2 countries.

The centre-right in Europe mostly have a Christian compassionate conservative tradition - and the UK for a while had One Nation Conservatism

This selfish "me, me" attitude also contributed to Brexit:

The same people who voted for austerity and to pay less tax
also voted against paying more to the EU than we got out, disliked paying in to the regional development fund to help poorer foreign countries.

If the agreement works, I have to say the ROI Government played a blinder here.

So long under the thumb of the British, but now may have called their bluff with no anger or huge headlines, just common sense.

Iain Duncan Smith suggests no Cabinet ministers will resign over the deal because their 'spines do not yet meet their brains'." #Brexit

If IBS's two brain cells ever crashed into each other his head would explode. He puts the 'N' into thick cut.

And yes, IBS was deliberately typed, as the vile excrescense irritates me beyond belief, as do the rest of the fucking arsehole Tory party.

Just to gladden the hearts of Leavers, there is a fuel price protest in France on Saturday. Protests and 'Go Slows' organised.

Am very glad to have an EU passport.

But some will tell me that if I don't have a blue UK passport I should not be in the UK in the first place.

Have none of the rest of the cabinet got the guts and integrity of Jo Johnson, to resign?

And incidentally, has anyone yet been appointed replacement Transport Secretary?

There is much laughter at the UK Government abroad. Believe me there is no redemption for them.