Westministenders: Well this is getting interesting!

[RedToothBrush]

The Minister responsible for writing a deal with the EU has succeeded in coming to an agreement. And has subsequently resigned because he can not agree with it. This man previously didn't know where Dover was, and why this was important. This man is a solicitor used to writing and reading complicated documents.

And we are supposed to believe he has done the honourable thing and has quit on a matter of principle. And has in no way, been a Carpetbagger all along and has deliberately intended to scupper a deal.

Mundell is not wrong about his former Cabinet College but its not terribly polite.

Esther has fucked off too. She was cut out the loop over the UC slow down and was precorded as civil servants thought she'd go crackers if she gave a live interview. This seems consistent with reports that she threw a tantrum in the Cabinet meeting, demanding a vote, before Sir Humphrey told her to refer to the Cabinet Handbook that states that votes are not allowed.

Rees-Smugg seems to have triggered a split in the ERG and has submitted a letter to Graham. Graham has been to see Julian, to tell him that he's not had enough fan mail - yet. Other ERG seem more content to just attempt to vote the deal down. Will there be a confidence vote? If there is, will May win? If she does she gets a special prize of 12 months immunity albeit with the booby prize of still having to get a deal through Parliament.

May now seems to be running a minority government as there are suggestions that the confidence and supply deal with the DUP is over. Kate Hoey appear to have joined the DUP. Perhaps she should have resigned from the Labour party first.

Gove was offered the poison chalice of the Brexit Secretary post. Initial reports said he baulked at the responsibility. Will he resign? Is he just going to go for the top job now? There is now suggestion, he hasn't rejected it afterall. Maybe she should just abolish the department and reallocate resources to the Cabinet office (like she's already done anyway).

Mordaunt is meeting the PM this afternoon to be told personally that there isn't a cat in hell's chance that May will have a free vote over Brexit. Just so she can get the PR for her leadership bid. Resignation scheduled for this afternoon.

Hunt and Javid just sat on the front bench after making noises to please leavers and set themselves up for their leadership bid.

Johnson is lurking. No statement today. Got some ringing around to get supporters for his leadership bid? Will he be the stalking horse?

Loathsome and Fox, admit their political careers have reached their zenith, and they got a cat in hell's chance of getting another Cabinet post. They are not resigning. Today at least.

Greyling is currently silent. There is speculation that his resignation is running late. Twitter is having a field day with jokes.

Duncan has said that an ERG candidate won't be able to form a government - implying that Tories would resign the whip if they did.

Stewart, has done his honourable best to support May through thick and thin, with his best Comical Ali impression and spouting any old bollocks on the radio. Bless Little Rory.

Neill retweets him. Soames doesn't sounds unlike them both. Morgan wouldn't mind a Cabinet job again. Soubry doesn't really care who is in charge as long anymore so long as its not the ERG.

Hancock said in Cabinet that he couldn't guarentee no deaths in a no deal situation. Leavers do not have an alternative idea to May's deal but No Deal. They don't mind risking Hancock being unable to protect people from death.

There are 10 days to go until the EU Summit. We have no idea if we will have a clear PM. Two days later we find out if unilateral revokation is an option to save our necks from disaster if we get that far.

If there is a no confidence vote, its penciled in for Tuesday.

The only Brexit certainity you can be sure of is this thread won't make it til then.

When Parliament votes, they do it by each MP or Peer walking through one of two corridors - one for yes and one for no. (Sometimes they do it by shouting but I think we can safely say this will be a proper Division job).

The name of each MP or Peer is recorded against the lobby they walked through, so you can look up your MP and see how they voted on any given issue. This will be the same.

Sure moousemouse and prettybird

BTW your son can always google, the info is out there.

I’m a remainer so I’m not saying these advantages are better overall than what we have now but 3 (if we go ‘Norway’ ie leave EU but choose EEA and EFTA) are:

We come out of EU common fisheries policy
Exempt from Common Agricultural Policy
ECJ has no jurisdiction
Out of EU closer integration agenda

We can use break on immigration (we have had powers to do that and never have). Under EEA we can use article 112 to opt out of four freedoms if facing severe societal, economic or environmental strain. We can argue against free movement as have a lot of people on a relatively small land mass, shortage of housing, societal strain can be argued by leave vote.

I’m not saying this is better than what we have now, but for some people it is. There is also an arguement we can use outperform new position to shore up the EEA group and disintangle further over time.

Hmmm interesting - more points of fact than persuasive argument.

But, better than anything a leaver has come up with.

{Out of EU closer integration agenda}
We already have that.

{We can use break on immigration (we have had powers to do that and never have).}
That's a big fail by the UK Gov(s) then as they couldn't be bothered.
Free movement is to an extent self limiting. There has been no prevention but there are only around 3 Million EU citizens in the UK. Surely if the UK was so super attractive there would be tens of Millions?
We see migrants from N Africa desperately trying to get to the UK. It would be interesting to know how many that have succeeded ultimately saying that it is not the unicorn they were told about so they want to go back.

It would be interesting to know how many that have succeeded ultimately saying that it is not the unicorn they were told about so they want to go back.

There is no need to do much digging tbh.
Just see how many EU citizens have now gone back to Europe.
Have a look at all the FB groups supporting EU citizens in the U.K. too.
Or just a recent thread on MN about racism with Quite a few posters acknowledging that racism is and always has been endemic in the U.K. That trying to integrate can be near impossible in some areas (even if you are white, let alone if your skin colour isn’t the right one).

I’m not trying to persuade you moose I’m a remainder as are you. I’m saying that some would view these as advantages. I’m not saying there are many, nor that they are persuasive

That's a big fail by the UK Gov(s) then as they couldn't be bothered

I agree to a large extent - though it's understandable in a world of limited resources that removals of people without a right to be here would focus on those who are unlikely to return, compared to those who can simply (and legally) get on the next plane / boat / train / bus and return to the EU. And without ID cards, and the back up systems necessary to make them effective, it's always going to be difficult to identify those who have moved from being in the UK legally and those who have not and don't need a stamp in their passport to confirm their status

I understand I'm just talking out loud. Posting out load.

"I admit to one of my own WTAFIHWTBS?
What the actual chuff 😉 is happening with this Brexit 'shenanigan'? 🙄😊"

I nearly guessed it: I had the BS down as something a bit shorter, though - you're clearly more polite than me!

Of course staying in EU is still possible. Donald Tusk, again, invited the UK to stay only 2 days ago and more than half the country would prefer to stay. The thing preventing that is the Tory government.

Of course leavers will be cross if we stay, but no more so than the cross remainers if we leave. People will be cross regardless. We can either have cross people and a functioning economy or cross people and fucking mayhem. Either direction can be followed perfectly democratically.

The Government have acted like utter embarrassing fools, but they are not our government forever, nor do they represent the majority of the citizens (far from!).

Having said all this, I don't see remaining as likely, but saying it can't happen is untrue and of course we don't want to be dishonest.

If the UK does remain, it will always be seen as the one who let off a stink bomb in the corner.
I am with Mrs Merkel's view, go while the going's good.

Of course he can google Iheartniles - but he is also expected to back up any opinions with facts

The Common Fishing Policy is one he has come up with (especially as he is at Aberdeen ) - but feels it is somewhat flawed by the fact that pelagic fishing accounts for something like 0.4% of Scottish GDP (so presumably an even smaller percentage of UK GDP ) and that the UK Government agreed to CFP and positively encouraged fishermen to sell their boats, without warning them that they were selling their quotas with them The UK also chose not to implement some of the safeguards and support for smaller fishing vessels

The CAP is more problematic in that it has kept many UK farmers afloat (which is why the UK Gov has committed to continuing to make the payments for at least 2 months) and is in the process of being reformed anyway to address some of its weaknesses - in future without the influence of the UK

Immigration is also problematic given that large parts of the UK economy in general need immigrants - and the EU immigrants actually make a positive contribution to the UK's GDP. So far from being a drain, they are contributing more than they get out Scotland actually needs more immigrants as we have an aging population and need to more young workers to do the heavy lifting (in many cases literally )

Plus, as has already been mentioned, the UK could have chosen to impose more restrictions on immigration but chose not to.

(This is my fourth attempt at writing this - the App/my phone kept on shutting down when I was mid way through the post - I'm sure there were other points I wanted to make )

If/when Brexit happens a lot of Leave voters will be badly affected. Add them to the Remain voters, and the vast majority of the population will be angry at being shafted.

Remain shouldn’t happen sadly. It will do no good, we can’t go back to where we were. People won’t accept the humiliation. Plus there are upsides to leaving, if done gradually.

People will not accept the humiliation of the consequences of this deal.

Humiliation is a given whatever action we take.

There are no upsides to leaving. If we leave we’ll have to go back eventually at great cost.

I’m not sure what you want me to say Moose. Those are the supposed upsides to leaving, as I understand them. There’s no point arguing the points with me. I’m not a leaver and no, I don’t think they’re infallible arguments, or outweigh the benefits of staying. As I voted to REMAIN. Probably EEA/EFTA is the least economicly harmful way of leaving, it has a few arguments in favour of it over remaining and I think reversing leave entirely will be a political mistake. We might have been able to do it two years ago but May chose hard brexit and has been trying to reel back since she opened her eyes to the reality.

Of course staying in EU is still possible. Donald Tusk, again, invited the UK to stay only 2 days ago and more than half the country would prefer to stay. The thing preventing that is the Tory government.

Agreed. It’s the optimum outcome for everyone. I don’t know if we can get there. But it’s not impossible.

Leadership contest turning into general election turning into Corbyn government. I think Corbyn is more malleable than May and there’s less support for Brexit in the Labour Party.

There’s still all to play for. But I suspect it won’t happen.

MPs are so terrified of constitutional crisis and actually losing control that they will vote for this deal just to keep the wolf from the door.

Actually, there is one benefit to be gained from leaving: maybe the UK/Westminster will then understand that the British Empire is long gone and that it needs to learn a bit of humility. And that working with, rather than trying to control, other countries is not a sign of weakness - it is a sign of self-confidence and strength.

{There are no upsides to leaving. If we leave we’ll have to go back eventually at great cost.}
The trouble is that cost and 'feelz' require almost opposing courses of action. Too many, particularly those who don't interact with 'normal' Europeans on their home turf do not have the disposition to integrate.
If people would realise that most want exactly what we want in the UK it might help but it is too late for that.

If the UK does remain, it will always be seen as the one who let off a stink bomb in the corner.

As stink bombs go it’s hardly comparable to unleashing a genocidal facist on the world - which contributed to the whole inception of the EU.

This petulant nationalist attitude of the current government is limited to a set of individuals and is a phase. It will pass and they will be replaced eventually with more sensible ones.

I don’t disagree prettybird

It’s a very expensive piece of humble pie.

Too many, particularly those who don't interact with 'normal' Europeans on their home turf do not have the disposition to integrate.

That type will be almost gone within a generation. It’s very much a dying perspective.

As stink bombs go it’s hardly comparable to unleashing a genocidal facist on the world - which contributed to the whole inception of the EU.

Agree- not saying other members will necessarily welcome the UK back with a standing ovation but holding a grudge is not what it's about. I think this whole process has shown them to be pretty pragmatic. If the UK pulls the plug while it still can, the EU will just move on from brexit faster than you can say 'hello we're back'.

So how many actual letters have been handed in? Anyone know?