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.

Thanks for the reminder, banhammer
I was rushing off to my Rhine jog !

Enjoy your day in York, pretzels
I hope there is a decent turnout

Jim Pickardd@PickardJE* (FT Chief political corresp)

allies of the Brexit secretary are insisting he did know Britain was an island/archipelago, hope this clears things up
12:34 PM · Nov 9, 2018

Love one of the comments below:


Paul Duggan@duggan_paul

Nov 9. Replying to @PickardJE
to be fair to Raab, he's been living off a diet of live mice since he hatched,
it's understandable he didn't realise where the rest of us get our food from
😂😂

Thanks for the new thread Red. I’m so behind .

I wrote a letter (handwritten ) rather than a postcard and in it I also told her to stick it. I didn’t actually mention a people’s vote though, just suggested that it was time to admit to the mistakes, the mess, the potential horror to come and take a time-unlimited pause while a cross party group works out a sensible way forward. I wrote quite a lot and in my least legible writing (rushed) so I’ll be surprised if they make the effort to read it. I was very pleased with it though and would follow my advise

@Perigrina, I think you should write to your MP - a letter of support would, I’m sure, be most welcome.

I understood that Boris was the only leave voting Johnson.

Brexiteers don’t want a second ref because they fear public opinion has swung against Leave. Remainers are wary because they’re not sure it has swung enough.

That assumes a repeat of the moronic 2016 referendum with no inbuilt margin.

We need to remember that being in the EU is the default position. Leaving is an action. It's not at all unusual to require a higher bar to change course than to remain on course. Imagine if Leave won a second referendum with an even smaller majority - say a few hundred ????

Brexiteers don’t want a second ref because they fear public opinion has swung against Leave. Remainers are wary because they’re not sure it has swung enough.

Presumably another referendum would also be advisory. So the govt could say yes ok we consider your advice again. Then once they have evaluated the results... a decent PM could say look it's too close to call. We have two borderline refs, so we are deciding (!) ...let's retain the status quo for the next decade and try and make some improvements re austerity/ re an actual immigration follow up etc.

to be fair to Raab, he's been living off a diet of live mice since he hatched,
it's understandable he didn't realise where the rest of us get our food from

That's a cracker!

{We need to remember that being in the EU is the default position.}
But not after 11pm on 29 March 2019. Mrs May put her hand up and asked to be excused (on our behalf) so she and the ERG can go outside and play.

About the second referendum, we know from various polls and BES that the vast majority of those switching to Remain are previous non-voters (young voters and others who didn’t vote), rather than from previous Leave voters. Although we obviously need a better campaign, i don’t think the focus should be on people changing their minds, but rather to retain existing Remainers, and capture those who didn’t / couldn’t vote before.

I have finally got worried enough to order a new freezer. The old one been broken for ages but we don’t typically use it much so replacing hasn’t been a priority. Really hope we won’t need to use this new one

Also noticed a strange thing this morning. I’ve had my eye on some flights for Feb half term for a long time (since they were released, which iirc was last March?). In that time they have reduced to a third of the original price. Is this normal, or is nobody travelling? I usually book last minute so I’ve never tracked the price over time before.

Hope you have a good time in York , Pretzels !

I'd have expected February flights to go up in price? I'll be travelling then if I can manage it. After not flying for over a decade, I've decided to visit a few places while I still can. Currently in Poland!

Yes I thought they would go up in price too, Thomasinaa, especially since it’s half term! I can only assume that none have sold?

Hope you are enjoying Poland!

Probably 'over thinking' but if flights are disrupted, having sold them at a lower price will mean less risk for them in the event they have to pay back due to cancellations.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but does anyone know if the UK has any trade deals / treaties in place that are independent of EU membership? My DH seems to think that trade with non-EU countries is not necessarily going to be badly interrupted as the UK will be able to continue to trade with them under existing trade deals that are independent of EU membership. And therefore that it's not necessary to stock up on much food etc. Personally I'd rather plan for the worst & be pleasantly surprised.

Everything. Every deal of any significance is, to my knowledge, through us being in the EU. If we leave with no deal every legal arrangement we ever made as EU member stops being valid.

Preparations made for hospital food shortages if UK crashes out of EU with no deal > www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-hospital-food-shortages-nhs-negotiations-no-deal-eu-patient-meals-a8627806.html

Health chiefs are preparing for hospitals to run out of imported food for patient meals, if the UK crashes out of the EU without an agreement.

Caterers have been told to hunt for “substitute foodstuffs to maintain nutritional balance” of meals, amid fears that supplies will be cut off by a no-deal Brexit, a government letter reveals.

Schools, the armed forces and “any kind of mass catering will also be affected, a committee of MPs has been told.

"Any kind of mass catering" includes prisons and care homes, as well as schools, hospitals and the armed forces.

A No Deal Brexit, or even just one that imposes delays on the food supplies, will result in food shortages,- not just in the shops but also for those people who are reliant on others to cater for them. Looks like a State of Emergency being declared by mid-March unless May sees sense.

Looks like there were several thousand pretzels today.
www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/17215269.protestors-take-part-in-peoples-vote-march-in-york/#gallery0

We have the numbers.
The dozen or so who were chased out of Liverpool last weekend to the Benny Hill theme tune proves it.

Where have all the Leavers gone from MN? There are still loads on other comment boards like news websites.

Well done to pretzels and co

kenn I was just thinking about that today, they pop up occasionally on brexit threads in chat or aibu but no brexit arms or anything. Must be looking for unicorns?

@Hazardswan

Leavers are still active on other boards, still as keen as ever and slagging off the 'evil' EU. Actually they're slagging off everybody else now as well. Apart from Jacob Rees-Mogg and Trump.

Where have all the Leavers gone from MN? There are still loads on other comment boards like news websites.

I think the professional ones don't like it here because their arguments get refuted very quickly so they are not getting much return on their investment of time and effort. It is a much more hostile environment here than for eg BTL on newspaper sites or even twitter (because there is a leave community on twitter but not on here).

I think the genuine hardcore leavers on here are probably are just fed up of being told they are/ made to look stupid, and the less hardcore ones have stopped caring like pretty much everyone else.

"Any kind of mass catering" includes prisons and care homes, as well as schools, hospitals and the armed forces.

That sent shivers down my back. Imagine being in prison if food shortages hit? You'll be last in the queue (behind the military, hospitals and schools, in that order) and you have no way of preparing for or mitigating the risk. And no one will care.

Just got back from York. It was a really good turn out, I was impressed. I arrived at the square just as the march was supposed to start and thought 'ooh it's crowded' - only to discover we weren't even on the march yet - the march was processing past and we were the stragglers waiting to tag on at the end.

I think there must have been a better turn out than the organisers expected - we didn't fit into the square for the speeches at the end. And they hadn't hired a proper sound system - they were just using a megaphone, so no one could hear a word. I think they were just expecting a few hundred - but it was well over a thousand.

All the marchers were lovely as always - but there was a lot of venom coming in from the sides of the road. I was called a traitor by one woman (the elderly gentleman I was marching with at the time was most annoyed because he had fought in the army when he was young). I was shoved by a man passing through who muttered 'shame on you all' as he went past. And there was one twat man who stood at the back of the crowd during the speeches and heckled. 'I'm the majority' he said to a crowd of hundreds, standing by himself (not in York he's not!) He told me to go to 'back' (to Leeds I presume ... but it won't solve anything it's in the exact same predicament.) In the end he got so rambunctious the police had to come and stand in front of him - whilst one of the stewards employed by the city screamed 'don't engage' at us.
I also saw the police having to manhandle two men in union Jack bobble hats out of the way and keep them separate from the crowd.

Which just goes to show - a thousand remainers turn up and march peacefully. Two TWO for the other side turn up and cause trouble. And yet we're the ones that got called traitors today.

I'm not sure if the amount of venom was because, being a much smaller march than the London ones, leavers felt braver about shouting stuff at us ... or if it's a sign that they're really scared.

They should be scared - we keep drawing far bigger crowds than expected. We are the ones with the numbers - even more than they realise. I was possibly the only westminsterender there in person today - but I was marching for you all. Everyone in that crowd will have been representing at least one other person who couldn't be there today.

It isn't over yet.

There are a lot of English people here in Poland.

Well done, Pretzel 💐
Wow, far more marchers than I expected for York