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?

Thought I would add in terms of a Venezuela type situation having repair skills of any kind would come in handy in terms of making a basic living.

One thing that would not cost much money at all is just buying a set of sewing needles and thread and learning how to just do some very basic sewing in terms of hemming and fixing up holes in shirts and pants. At least here in the US you would be surprised at how many people have no idea how to sew anything.

It will fine with me if i am totally wrong about all of this.

There should be a be in front the fine, sorry.

Wrt the deaths of the Goebbels children:
Got a doctor to give them poison in milk. The eldest suspected what was happening, but calmed the younger ones before taking it herself.
It was one of the more unbearable scenes in Downfall.
DGR

Statements were made to the effect that Magda Goebbels herself administered the cyanide that killed them after they were give morphine by Hitler's physician or after he provided morphine that was administered by someone else.
Helga apparently put up a fight but was overwhelmed.
A Soviet autopsy on Helga's body noted "several black and blue bruises", indicating that she probably woke up and struggled with her killer.[35] A photograph taken during the autopsy showed heavy bruising on the dead child's face. The injuries were apparently caused when a cyanide capsule was forced into her mouth.[10][36] The child's jaw might also have been broken

Hands up for those that think May will delay vote on WA again? Dare she do it?

She's done it once: that's all you need to know.

I've already cast the runes that there won't be a vote at all.

Breaking news ...

Think I must agree unless she does a vote on any amendments to it she might have got when she went back to EU with her begging bowl instead rossetti

I've already cast the runes that there won't be a vote at all.

And then straight into No Deal?

I was wondering if a possible chain of events is:
WA voted down
Debate & vote on either No Deal or Revoke

But if JC isn't willing to oppose Brexit what hope is there?

rossetti

The truth is someone is going to have to make a terrible decision, mainly May. Her career is effectively finished. Will she let the country face a no deal or will she revoke? She must decide pretty soon. Her WA is rubbish she must admit that now and make a decision. She cannot in her wildest dreams think she can carry on with her career. Parliament too must do this but as I said previous there is no courage in the HoC.

Misti you are relying on the MPs finding common sense and a sense of duty to their constituents & the contry.
Sometimes I tell myself this too 🤞
then I look at the track record

Not common sense. The common sense thing to do would be revoke!

Cowardice. That's what gets the WA through parliament. MPs too afraid that no deal leaves them unelectable and too afraid that no Brexit does the same. Only way that the WA does not pass is if the consequences are seen by Tory MPs to be worse than no deal and by Labour MPs as worse than revoking.

Though note that DAG on Twitter plainly thinks that no deal is the most likely outcome. I'm not quite there ... yet.

Sorry quote fail there! First four lines are from BCF.

"A mixture of gullibility and cynicism had been an outstanding characteristic of mob mentality before it became an everyday phenomenon of masses. In an ever-changing, incomprehensible, world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything is possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynism the vice of superior and refined minds.

Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness."

~ Hannah Arendt

The EU Commission have said there would be a Fast Track process if the Uk decided to Rejoin during transition.
We should be able to keep the optouts in that unique and limited time window, imo

People keep claiming we'd lose all the optouts, but this is one unique case where the UK is genuinely important enough and would be significantly different from new prospective members

If we rejoined 10 years after transition, those special circumstances would have lapsed

No Deal Brexit = pre Victorian Britain circa 1830s when the cotton industry collapsed. Except there is no industrial revolution to save anyone.

A collapse in the middle class is accurate.

As is any safeguarding whatsoever. Be it welfare or rights. And for adults and children alike.

Our membership of the EHCR would falter even if we stay in, as there would not be enough to sustain the quality of life needed for it to be viable in practice because of the collapse of the economy.

And there is a coming storm economically on a global scale. Trump intends to keep the government shut down permanent to destroy the state and so he can buy up bits. It's not going to last weeks. It'll last until there is civil unrest.

And China. The warning Apple gives about the fortunes of the Chinese economy is the tip of the iceberg. Indeed apple is in bigger trouble than you might think.

The consumer economy is dead. Disposal products dead, eating out a thing of the past, low cost overseas travel a distant memory.

People will return to working the land where they can out of desperation but lacking skills. Living conditions to do this will be illegal migrant level. It's that or your family starves. Not that you will be living with your family.

The middle class will leave the country where they can or if they survive the cut they will be laughing buying up housing stock and putting up Nimby barricades around their nice enclaves. People with a 'face that doesn't fit' will be driven out - that's people who are poor in rich areas and people with funny names and accents in poorer areas.

Northern Ireland will be a disaster.

And as time goes on I fear that May would indeed no deal rather than revoke.

After all she can afford a return to the pre industrial era like her fellow land owning elites in the Tory Party.

Taking back control was only ever about this. Look at the ERG membership. It tells you everything. The DUP are just in it to break the GFA.

No Deal Brexit = no tomatoes.

That's pizza and curry and spag bol.

That's enough to start riots.

Revoke is best, because Remain was always better than any kind of Brexit.

However, the WA is far far worse than No Deal.

No Deal would mean such serious damage to the UK that we might never recover to being a prosperous 1st world country again.
It would be the destruction of much of what we take for granted - and even thise who think they have no rights or money would find they are wrong and they have something to lose.

In the WA:
Even if we don't rejoin, there is still the possibility to move to our own EEA 3rd pillar (since EFT don't want us) but copy the EFTA template

Even if the backstop is invoked, because of more UK dithering & squabbles, it keeps all the UK in the CU and with most of the SM rules, e.g all those on workers rights, the environment etc
That rules out any deal with the US or any other country that would loot us and the NHS.

It would be a very inferior copy of much of what we have now, but nearer to that than it is to No Deal.
Losing the rights to FOM now looks far less significant for the UK young, given the eagerness of Germany and others for non-EU workers.

red has summed up No Deal much better than I did.
The WA is nowhere near that bad

but Remain is so much better !

xebob I agree with your analysis.
That blog was a bit too 'emotional' to me but reflects the reality. A reality WE ARE ALREADY EXPERIENCING (see the effect of the pound going down in value in the last couple of years, the increase in cost of food etc)

I'm still Wondering WHEN will people wake up (when there shortages in April, after a couple of years of companies closing one after the other, when more than half the opukation will be under the poverty line?) or if they will ever wake up (because when you are in survival mode, tbh not a lot else exist apart from your next meal and hopefully a roof over your head)

I really don't think a Revoke is possible.
Yes it makes sense and is better economically.
But politically it's impossible to accept. It would aleniate about50% of people and would create a divide even bigger within the country. Just revoking is as much of a unicorn to me than a nice and easy No Deal or a 'special partnership with cherry picking'

We need a change of outlook. We need to start talking about the real reasons of the NO vote. We need to address those as well as acknowledge what the uk wants ( e.g. I don't think it's cut out to be an EU member atm) and what it needs.
Atm there is no sense of direction fir the country itself. No aim but constant firefighting and personal gain.
Until we move on from that dichotomy Leave vs Remain in a country divided right in the middle by it, we will go to a disaster. Whatever situation we end up with

I think we all know that any food shortages will be blamed on Remainer "wreckers" - sounds familiar? Yes, because that's what extremists do when a silly plan goes wrong: blame the people who objected to it.

@QueenieIsLost which is why WA is what we need to accept. It's shit. We leave like "the people " want. We deal with it together.

Until we move on from that dichotomy Leave vs Remain in a country divided right in the middle by it, we will go to a disaster.

This is just naive though because that dichotomy has to be resolved, because the clock is ticking, and it will take enormous political and practical resources to resolve it. You can't just wave a wand and make Brexit go away.

Assuming you don't want to revoke A50, there are only two options, both of which are expensive both in money terms and because they will occupy the British government and MPs, almost to the exclusion of all else, for years to come.

Talking about the WA as "deal" is a category error. It's the step before negotiating a deal. Negotiations will take another 5-10 years and will likely lead to a series of cliff edges as transitions run out and are extended (or not).

So we can go off the cliff now (with likely long-term damage to the UK economy and unknown societal risks) or we can spend an enormous amount of effort negotiating a future deal, without any guarantee that there won't be another cliff edge in 2 years' time.

Brexit has baked austerity into British politics for a generation, regardless of whether it ever happens or not.

We need to start talking about the real reasons of the NO vote.

We passed that point in Oct 2016.

After that, ANY outcome was likely to be political destructive and too many people would object.

It became a game of which group was the most politically expendable and manageable through a series of lies, goal post shifting and expectation management.

We've gone from more money for the NHS and global Britain to soveignity is more important than anything else and Britain can be self sufficient. From the same mouths.

And lots of leave voters are saying this too. Those who wanted to block the NHS being sold to the US because of a supposed EU deal that was never going to pass now seem to support people who think Trump will save the UK with a magic deal and are openly saying this.

No. We either face a hard right lerch followed by a far left one or a far left one followed by a far right one or just a polarisation to the point of some sort of violence. I can not see a way out of this because dogma and ideology has taken over from reality and pragmatism.

I'm a beacon of optimism this morning.

I'm pondering how much passata I can stash behind my books on the bookshelf. Last before I saw was mid 2020.

Bellini - the WA only solves the immediate problem. Negotiations post WA take 5-10 years, potentially leading to more cliff edges, and meanwhile inward investment and jobs disappear, and educated workers take their skills where they are more appreciated.

Sam Coates Times @samcoatestimes
Times

On Monday, the Commons is likely to approve new rules on conduct, including the ability to hold inquiries into complaints more than 7 years old without asking MPs first so...

... Bercow could face inquiry into allegations of bullying sources say

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/7fa9f7e4-1072-11e9-aa1a-52868904fdf4
John Bercow, the Speaker, could face inquiry into allegations of bullying

Bercow is important...