Westminstenders: May plays Sale of the Century

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa May is currently in the midst of a campaign to sell her deal to the public. Unfortunately she appears that there are only 649 people she needs to sell it to, and that's not going so well.

She attempted a sales pitch to potential Labour rebels and succeeded in getting them to actively decide to vote against her.

There are currently 100 backbench tories who have stated they will vote against it, which makes parliamentary maths very difficult.

There is a rising support for plan b in the form of Norway Plus. This may make Remainers less likely to vote for a deal but persuade some leavers to back May.

The ECJ A50 Court case has been heard. Judgment has not been given yet. Its due 'soon'.

Next week the Withdrawal Agreement will be debated in Parliament with the vote due at 7pm on Tuesday 11th December.

Expect a rough couple of weeks.

They are of that mindset England is great we don't need foreign stuff and don't need anyone at all.We can produce our own food,( I know we can't.)

Go to their kitchen and take gather up all the non-UK produced food. Go to their wardrobes and collect together all the non UK made clothes. They would be going round at least semi-naked and half starved if they relied on UK produced stuff.

I've just looked at the labels on the clothes I am wearing - one garment from Cambodia, two from Bangladesh, and one which doesn't say but almost certainly from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh.

lonelyplanetmum You may well be correct and I hope you are which is why I responded to BigChocs post about 'real' leavers.

I know Peregrina but there will be people reading this thread who think but let's just make all that stuff again!

My FIL who is almost like a caricature of a Daily Express Reading Leaver has a mantra with stuff like " Don't get me started - it's shameful how they let manufacturing go"

He doesn't know who " they" are but lashes out as if the EU is the nebulous " they" he has hated for so long. He is a Mason as in Freemason incidentally - not sure if that's relevant?

RNorth fervently wants to Brexit and have the UK create - and lead - its own large European organisation.
Just because he wanted to avoid the disaster of no deal doesn't mean he wants it enough to ever support Remain.

Yeah I know. He accurately analyses the Brexit unicorns and rejects them for his own Flexcit unicorns without twigging he’s clinging to a similar fantasy.

The real upshot of his analysis is that Brexit should be cancelled.

Putting this huge, complicated issue to the people was ridiculous the first time round and I think another PV is making the same mistake twice. I want politicians on all sides to take responsibility for this, do their jobs and work together to sort this mess out

Agreed.

*People have become used to mostly being shielded by the state, or by consumer / workers' protection law, if they make terrible mistakes in life

They don't comprehend that a national catastrophe can happen to Britain*

I agree. There is a blind faith it will all be ok and people are happy to dismiss any warnings about what we are facing as scaremongering. Not sure if it’s arrogance or niavety or a combination of both.

Talk that May currently set to lose vote by 400.

Putting this huge, complicated issue to the people was ridiculous the first time round and I think another PV is making the same mistake twice. I want politicians on all sides to take responsibility for this, do their jobs and work together to sort this mess out

Agreed.

A sensible government could say

" ...look the first referendum was advisory. Like a straw poll.
There are some mutterings that the will of the people has changed. To save expense we are going to do a huge on line ( and paper) survey to help
Us make the decision."

Then do a sort of big census/ survey including overseas U.K. passport holders. Then assuming the survey is say 52:48 the other way -then there's an out.

This fictional sensible government then says" ...look the survey shows people and Parliament are still too divided.To take a high or certain risk strategy like this we need more consensus. For now, or say 10 years,We will stay in the EU trying to reform things we don't like by slow but skilled diplomacy."

( Poor EU being stuck with us though.)

My FIL who is almost like a caricature of a Daily Express Reading Leaver has a mantra with stuff like " Don't get me started - it's shameful how they let manufacturing go"

It's probably a fat lot of good telling him that it was inefficient British industries and successive Westminster Governments that are the "they" responsible. When he sees German cars and German kitchen appliances all around him it's not a sign that the EU doesn't interfere in domestic issues, but a German conspiracy to dominate.

Oh dear, we don't like it do we? When 'we' had an Empire, the fact that we dominated millions of others, was just taken as the natural order of things - we never stopped to think that the dominated might not agree.

Associated Press @ap
BREAKING: Israeli police recommend indicting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on bribery charges involving Israel's telecom giant.

Well this could get interesting for world politics

I've tried asking FIL who " they" are.

He just gets shouty and splutters " They, them, whoever's in charge- Germans, French - they want to take us over."

'They' are also responsible for potholes ( of course). Traffic congestion, terrorism, hospital waiting lists, people smugglers in lorries.

It's always " they" -but not the govt he voted for of course.

Back to the bigger picture- 400!!
Benjamin Netanyahu..

Just playing a bit of catch up (DH has had a few days off this week)

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/01/jeremy-corbyn-accused-blocking-appointment-jess-phillips-parliaments/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Jeremy Corbyn accused of blocking appointment of Jess Phillips to Parliament's standards committee

Jeremy Corbyn is being investigated by the standards watchdog over his undeclared foreign trips, Labour has confirmed.

The admission comes after the party’s leader was accused of blocking the appointment of an outspoken Labour MP Jess Phillips to the committee of MPs that oversees the watchdog.

Story broke on same day as Kate Osamor quit the Labour front bench over her conduct relating to her sons drug conviction and violent comments to a journalist (notably Owen Jones defended her saying that people have driven a black woman from the front benches which frankly is bonkers given her behaviour which anyone else would have been held to account for)

Steven Swinford @steven_swinford
Nick Boles tells @sophyridgesky that 8 Cabinet ministers have sought him out to discuss Norway option. 'They all see we are heading off a cliff'

As Telegraph revealed on Sat Hunt, Gove, Cox, Hancock, Rudd, Hammond, Clark & Gauke are all in talks about it

Beth Rigby @bethrigby
It looks like May could be facing two votes of no confidence the week after next: one in parliament tabled by Labour and one in her leadership from mutinous backbenchers. #marr

In the interests of other opinions

moneyweek.com/498512/relax-a-no-deal-brexit-will-be-fine/#.XAMAKRFBDRU.twitter
Relax – a no-deal Brexit will be fine

blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/12/ten-myths-from-the-no-deal-project-fear/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Ten myths from the ‘no-deal’ Project Fear

I am not surprised that people are confused about “No Deal” and the Government have only themselves to blame.
An advisory referendum that suddenly became “the Will of the People” and to be enacted at all costs.
All the confusion and misinformation surrounding the negotiations.
Different factions, both from the UK and the EU, telling us we can revoke A50 - or we absolutely can’t, it’s too late.

Dear God! I’m bloody confused! I dip in here whenever I can but, like most, I have a full time job with long hours and a life to survive.

I want to Remain. I have always wanted to Remain. How can I best do that? What option do I have?
What I’d like is for the referndum to be recognised as illegal and scrapped, A50 revoked and we stay in the EU to work with them for a Europe that benefits us all.

I think voting down TM’s Deal is the best way to achieve this: since everyone claims that No Deal is unthinkable, it can’t be an option... can it? Any PV should surely be 2 options: TM’s Deal or Remain since she’s adamant that hers is the only deal on offer.

Accepting her deal will be spun as wanting to Leave, won’t it? And I don’t want to leave; I want to remain.
Telling me that the boat has sailed isn’t really helpful because there are those, Barnier for instance, who say it has not. Who should I believe?

No wonder we’re confused! They’ve proved themselves utterly untrustworthy. They might be saying now that No Deal is unthinkable, but who’s to say they won’t change their minds?

Thanks for those balancing articles Red.

I had thought it's one of the few positives that if the worst case scenario. Is 8% of the economy feeling some impact, that leaves 92%. It's just that for those with jobs in that 8%- the hit for them is 100% iyswim.

Lonely I thought the first para of the first link was quite extraordinary!

Beth Rigby@bethrigby
Gove as good as confirms what we all know, he considered quitting cabinet over the deal. “I reflected long and hard but concluded that while it’s imperfect it’s the right thing to do” #marr

Sam Coates Times@samcoatestimes
Michael Gove this morning arguing that while he doesn’t like the backstop, the EU like seeing it less because it represents cost free access to the single market so they wouldn’t let it exist for long.

Gove insists that in the backstop the UK would not have to follow new EU rules, except in two areas. (He’s not pressed on what they are). Very contentious area, since what would happen to NI if GB diverges?

Michael Gove says idea TM could go back to Brussels if she loses the vote is “flawed” (which is different, clearly, to “wrong”)

Michael Gove seems to be warning to second referendum supporters that the mere act of calling a new vote could change minds in favour of a voting brexit. People were not “too dim” when they voted for brexit first time

Michael Gove says Norway “is not as good as this deal”

Gove admits he is at odds with Hammond because he believes Britain will be better off outside the EU

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/02/france-is-deeply-fractured-gilets-jeunes-just-a-symptom?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true
France is deeply fractured. Gilets jaunes are just a symptom

I'm just reading about the riots in France, and I confess complete ignorance. Can anyone enlighten me about it as if this article is anywhere near correct, it rather suggests the same thing is likely to brew here in no small measure.

RTB: I'm trying to understand the gilets jaunes myself, but it's difficult because the "movement" isn't really a movement, it's a loose alliance of discontents with different political views, and it's pretty much certain now that has been infiltrated by people on both left and right who have an interest in promoting violent unrest.

On my FB the gilet jaune supporters vary from people I know through our BMX club (broadly quite right wing - lots of small business owners and artisans; in some cases it wouldn't surprise me to discover they voted FN) to people I know through a personal connection to a regional député (she is FI ie Melenchon's party).

You'd be surprised btw at how much cross over there is between these two groups - I know Melenchon voters who spread anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic memes on FB for eg.

Sophy Ridgeway @sophyridgesky
^Three takeaways from today’s @RidgeOnSunday
1️⃣ Keir Starmer: Labour will move a confidence motion if the Government loses the Brexit vote
2️⃣ Brandon Lewis: Plan B is Plan A
3️⃣^Nick Boles has spoken to 6-8 cabinet ministers about Norway Plus
#Ridge^

You'd be surprised btw at how much cross over there is between these two groups - I know Melenchon voters who spread anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic memes on FB

Not really. British politics has the same thing going on in many respects

Not really. British politics has the same thing going on in many respects

True enough. Plenty of racism and (especially) misogynist on the British left.

The weird thing here though is that Melenchon is a self-styled ecologist - which makes the coalition with the gilets jaunes even more incoherent.

Basically if you're a gilet jaune, you are saying that you want services but you don't want to pay for them, and you don't mind frying the planet your children and grandchildren will grow up on. I'm fucking sick of them personally.