Westminstenders: Welcome to 2019

[RedToothBrush]

Welcome to 2019.

Bit of a different thread starter; instead of me speculating what are your predictions for the coming year politically? Will be interesting to see how people are viewing things right now.

How is Brexit going to play out?

Who is going to be framed as the scapegoat for whatever scenario you think likely?

What are going to be the biggest political issues that the media / politicians push (as opposed to what the real issues are)?

What is going to be the most shocking thing that will happen either here or abroad?

What will happen with Trump?

Who will be the next Tory leader and when?

Whats on the cards for the various political parties in general?

National Day of Action for a People's Vote, Saturday 12 January.

Does anyone know any more about this?

A bit off-topic: Houellebecq has just released a new novel, this time on the bitter 'vanquished white male'. Allegedly he is himself a fan of Trump and Brexit. Well, he's always been a cynic and a provocateur for provocation's sake, however he always taps into a certain unpalatable zeitgeist:

www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jan/04/vanquished-white-male-houellebecqs-new-novel-eerily-predicts-french-discontent

Depressing that today's counter culture is led by small-minded machos with such a chip on their shoulder they look like ants carrying half a baguette.

open letter from UK university leaders to government

Expect a massive brain drain in the event of No Deal - and a hammer to UK's leading edge research.

https://www.staffnet.manchester.ac.uk/news/display/?id=21225

The letter to MPs from Universities UK, Guild HE, the Russell Group, Million Plus and University Alliance
– which collectively represent more than 150 higher education providers across the UK – says

the impact of a no deal scenario could lead to “an academic, cultural and scientific setback from which it would take decades to recover.”

The letter states:
• Our 50,000 EU staff and 130,000 EU students, not to mention the 15,000 UK students studying in Europe, are starting the new year facing significant uncertainty about their futures.

•	<strong>Vital research links will be compromised, from new cancer treatments to technologies combatting climate change. The valuable exchange of students, staff and knowledge would be seriously damaged.</strong>

And we share the concerns of business about the impact of no deal on everything from supply chains to security and travel.

University leaders say that the government needs to demonstrate the required ambition, put the right measures and guarantees in place, and, crucially, avoid the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal on 29 March.

You can read the letterr in full and the press releasee.
As a matter of urgency, they call for a guarantee that research funding from which the UK may be excluded at the end of March will be replaced.

European Research Council (ERC) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) schemes will be worth an estimated €1.3 billion to the UK over the next two years,
and fund vital scientific discovery, including in developing new cancer treatments and to combat climate change.

The UK is currently the most successful country in hosting ERC grantees,
ahead of Germany, but would immediately become ineligible in the event of no deal.

Commenting on the possibility of a no-deal Brexit Nancy said:
“University research is at the forefront of scientific and medical breakthroughs and many are only possible through EU research collaborations, on projects led by UK universities.

“At The University of Manchester, vital and transformative research programmes risk being disrupted,
such as our work on proton-beam therapy for cancer patients, which allows more precise targeting of tumour sites and minimises damage to surrounding tissue,

and our Nobel-prize winning work on graphene, the strongest, thinnest and most versatile material ever identified.

“Leaving the EU without a deal would be a serious setback for these fields of discovery and many more, from the arts and social sciences to engineering and nuclear research.

Researchers who have already spent months or even years preparing funding bids would be left high and dry, including those whose application would be stuck in the middle of the evaluation process.”

Mrs thank you. I’ll take another look.

No Brexit:_ Channel Ports_ after no deal?

A detailled analysis by the BBC "Reality Check" correspondent of UK & E ports

Also nails the 6 second LIE from JRM

• remember to correct this because Brexiters keep quoting his bollocks

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-46739895

The Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has often quoted a statistic that it takes only six seconds to complete customs checks for goods arriving at the port of Southampton from outside the EU.
There is, he has suggested, no reason why ports such as Dover cannot implement similar systems.

DP World Southampton, which operates the container terminal with the Port of Southampton, confirmed that customs declarations are processed in approximately six seconds,
but it emphasised that, at that point, the cargo is not customs-cleared.

It normally takes about an hour for customs clearance to be completed after a vessel arrives at port,
but crucially
that depends on customs declarations and other documents being submitted "typically 2 to 3 days before" the ship reaches Southampton.

It is a system that works well at ports like Southampton or Felixstowe for goods arriving from the other side of the world.
If a ship is at sea for several weeks,it gives companies plenty of time to get all their paperwork in order.

The challenge with Ro-Ro freight, which becomes more acute as crossings get shorter, is that you have less time to do that.
On the 90-minute journey from Calais to Dover,
with the sheer volume of traffic which uses that route,
it is something of a non-starter.

The thing is BigChocFrenzy
that a HUGE chunk of the UK population have convinced themselves

• that the "liberal elite" have it coming
• that the EU is bullying the UK
• that no deal will be like they remember their youth
• that its all project fear

and sadly the shouts of Universities play RIGHT into that

I am genuinely starting to despair
only the elected politicians can get us out of this
NOTHING said by any other group (Business / Academe / Diplomacy) will have an impact

Brexit Preparedness – Kent County Council Update

A huge amount of prep ( - and lack of clarity over who is paying)

They will use emergency powers in Civil Contingency Act 2004

Also affects schools

https://democracy.kent.gov.uk/documents/s88112/Item%207%20-%20Brexit.pdf

the planning assumptions continue to be fluid with a high degree of uncertainty.
Since August 2018, the planning scenario proposed by Government has increased from three to six months of disruption,
although the rationale for this has not been provided by Government.
...
KCC has, and continues to, ask the Government to meet a range of identified capital investment and revenue support costs to manage traffic congestion on Kent’s highways and to cover a new Trading Standards Border Team. This would ensure the Kent Taxpayer is not subsidising additional costs as a result of any nationally agreed position.
....
These briefings have specifically shared latest planning assumptions and identified a need for schools to review travel plans for staff and pupils;
supply chain vulnerabilities (e.g. schools meals, etc);
any plans for off-site travel in the three to six month planning assumption window;
and the air quality impacts that may arise from the idling of HGV and other vehicles close to education settings in the event of traffic disruption.
Further work is needed to explore the impacts on early year’s settings.
.....
KCC service standards could be impacted and services may not be able to operate to the same levels as prior to Brexit.
Customer response times could be affected.
Whilst a proportion of staff could work from home, there are some staff that need access to paper files as a result of their statutory responsibilities: For example, children’s services and Coroners’ service staff need access to paper files in order to deliver their services.
.....
Through the Kent Resilience Forum, KCC Highways and partners have devised a dedicated ‘Freight Traffic Management Plan’, which contains various mitigations to maintain freight fluidity in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

CatfromJapan:

More information about 12th January, and other events, here:

www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/anti-brexit-events-in-my-local-area-including-protests-marches-and-socials-1-5464362

TiP I would only bother posting uni warnings here, for Westministenders.
I was thinking as I posted that anywhere else would be rejected as "elite" Project Fear and irrelevant to their daily lives.

Many people have little idea of what makes the advanced country they live in actually work day to day and for the future,
let alone how the money is earned to pay for it all and how the food & meds that keep them alive arrive.

As we've seen from posts here, "the liberal elite" seem best placed to cope when it comes to shortages of meds etc

BigChoc
I have LOTS of friends who are faculty at Unis up and down the country
they have learned not to speak out

I have a lot to catch up on, but will try not to get caught up in despair.
< dons protective clothing>

Then indeed time to "sauve qui peut" and anyone who can, join the brain drain to the E27

5.6 in that link from BigChoc is the scariest

btw, I'm not knocking tests, however ...
that test was 150 goods trucks and Dover has 16,000 per day
so I hope it was adequate 🤔

BigChoc
I know the A259 well
this run is a "proof of principle" - testing roundabouts and traffic light timings
same as yonks ago when Pfizer took their plant from 2000 to 25000 staff in a matter of weeks

The test would have given a lot of useful info.

However, I know from "proof of principle" tests that enormous scaling up, here by a factor of over 100x,
can mean some issues that only happen in the largescale rl situation are not found.

So I hope these have been considered elsewhere

BigChoc
My knowledge of East Kent is such that I am absolutely certain that the Manston test will slot into a mega mapping set they have for gridlock of everything east of Stone Street

that is the least of our worries ;-)

this run is a "proof of principle" - testing roundabouts and traffic light timings

Do you think so?

I think it's pure theatre, aimed at the media and recalcitrant MPs.

mistigri
Yes and no
Manston has long been mooted but now its real and those northern roads have not been tested
so its for the cameras and the planners

I noticed the line in KCC report requesting relaxation of driver hours limits. I wonder if that will be made specific to the trucks in Kent or rolled out UK wide?

I know this is only the Mirror but the facts and figures about the exceptionally low attempts at boat immigration are interesting.

For example 82 per day in 2015 and only 6 per day now etc.
That original reporting of the dinghy arrivals was weird and completely misrepresented the position.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/channel-migrant-crisis-heres-what-13812341?utmsource=facebook.com&utmmmedium=social&utmcampaign=mirrorrmain

The Columnist @ sime0nstylites

1. It is reasonable to assume the government will fail the Meaningful Vote.

1. Nothing much will have substantively changed re the deal the government has already agreed.

1. As a result, enough DUP and Conservative MPs will vote against to ensure its failure.

1. The more interesting question is what happens next - Deal or No Deal.

1. Lets deal with No Deal next. It is opposed by substantial majorities in the HoC and in the country (apart from Cons party members).

1. But it is the axiomatic outcome at the end of March if there is no deal (unless A50 is extended or revoked).

1. It will also be very damaging economically - worth noticing the more realistic tone from Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt over the last few days.

1. So while No Deal would be the technical base case after a MV fail, it is not the preferred outcome for pretty much all constituencies (excluding Cons Party members).

1. A likely strategy would be to hold a second (or even a third) vote on the deal and rely on fear etc to gain support from more Cons MPs and some Labour MPs.

10. This is very risky indeed. A reasonable assumption is that the government would need around 50 Labour MPs. That is a huge challenge.

11. It’s also an inherently self damaging approach because it in effect relies on some of the damaging consequences of No Deal occurring pre the end of March.

12. At this point, let’s also discount a successful vote of confidence leading to a GE. There simply aren’t the votes for it.

13. I’m also going to discount a second referendum. Without Labour support (and there’s little evidence this will be forthcoming), there are not even close to enough votes.

14. Finally, I’m going to discount regretfully the Norway type plans. Honourable exceptions aside, MPs have failed to coalesce around a workable alternative to TM’s deal. This is a huge fail.

15. All of this leads us to two very obvious (and unsurprising) conclusions: TM’s deal is the only one ‘on the table’; and, formal Labour Party support will be needed to pass the MV

16. What then might be a workable way to achieve Labour support, assuming that fear of no deal alone is neither sufficient nor responsible.

17. There’s little prospect of a commitment (via the PD) to a full CU. Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, it would lose even more Conservative support.

18. Whatever the downside risk, I see little prospect of the government agreeing a Brexit deal that irreparably fractures the Cons party.

19. So what then? This is the point that Labour might shift its position to support a second referendum. But, as noted above, there’s little evidence this will happen.

20. The compromise space (assuming the EU’s negotiating parameters are effectively fixed) is the minimum possible changes to the deal necessary to gain Labour support (noting the No Deal risk) and not lose more Cons party support.

21. There are three ways to do this (i) The PD can be made even more anodyne - ie take out all the language that is directive to a future destination.

22. (ii) The government could make some sort of commitment to the backstop being a worst case scenario - ie it commits to negotiating a deal that avoids the backstop and to extending transition if that proves necessary.

23. (iii) More controversially, the government might commit to a post Brexit GE. This would be highly desirable for Labour.

24. It may also be an inevitable consequence of passing TM’s deal without the DUP’s support and the government losing its working majority.

25. To be this close to a No Deal situation (with all the negative consequences even if it doesn’t happen) is a huge failure of numerous stakeholders in the UK.

26. Amidst stiff competition, perhaps the single biggest failure so far has been the government’s inability to understand that its deal needs cross party support.

27. It’s more than past time for the government to change its approach. /ends

David Henig @ davidheniguk
Retweeted you while in full flow. See my thoughts - PM and Corbyn tacitly aligned on same approach, and there's not enough others to change this....

If I read this right Number 10 know they cannot get any meaningful concession from the EU that will allow the DUP to support the Brexit deal but expect that eventually faced with the threat of no deal enough MPs will vote for the deal or perhaps abstain so it passes

Next projection - the PMs approach on Brexit is tacitly supported by Jeremy Corbyn, as the only way he can continue to be both theoretically opposed to the PMs deal, supportive of Brexit, and not be blamed too much.

There probably aren't enough MPs who think this a political and constitutional outrage to change this, but those that have such thoughts better have some good ideas how to get the numbers, because it looks to me like the PM has the upper hand here.

Thus most likely the UK leaves the EU with a poor deal in March, and then we can all keep bickering and letting Brexit dominate as guess what, this deal solves nothing and merely gives us another cliff edge in 2 years time. Slightly different view here...

The above depends on whether you view Corbyn as a pragmatist or a wannabe revolutionary....