Westministenders: Teetering on the edge

[RedToothBrush]

12 weeks to go.

There is rising confidence in the Extreme Brexiteer camp as well as open comments about how they can deliberately force through No Deal. Remember No Deal is the default. Every political crisis that takes up time makes no deal more likely and the ERG can just be obstructive to facilitate a political crisis. Parliament DO NOT have the ultimate power to stop Brexit - unless the government effectively allow an option to do so. And there is no sign May will let this ever happen. No Deal takes us back to pre-industrial revolution Britain in many social and economic ways. Which will please Jacob Rees-Mogg no end.

No Deal prep is now costing us a fortune - and is no where near sufficient in its scope. Won't someone think of all the extra that could have been put into the NHS.

Parliament returns next week. I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas break. What will happen in 2019 no one knows; the only certainity is turbulance and lurching from crisis to crisis. If we don't get hit by Brexit, maybe it will be the US shutdown crisis or the collaspe in the Chinese economy that will get us. Economists are nervous and thats generally not a good thing for the average person on the street.

Time to get in the euros, stock up on the tomatoes, invest in books and otherwise batten down the hatches financially whilst we await the coming storm in the hope that the forecasters are as good as Michael Fish in 1987.

My mum used to tell me of her main childhood memory, that of my gran nursing her own incontinent mother in the 30's and the overwhelming stench of the soiled bed sheets being changed, washed on a scrubbing board and wringed out in a mangle, no electricity, no pads, no washing machines and no NHS.

My mum (born 1936) tells similar tales, and also stories of visiting her mum in a 1940s psychiatric hospital when she developed a brain tumour. It can get a LOT worse.

My Irish mother, a nurse in England before and during the war, recalled nursing whole families dying of diphtheria in the 30s. She recalled the phoney war for DS when he was doing it in history lessons, he recorded her for homework (unfortunately we lost the recording). She and my father (serving Naval officer in the war) saw the EU in all its guises as a Good Thing for reasons articulated by other posters.
I still have a little nursing handbook of hers. It has a section on laying out trays of instruments for various surgical procedures. The last is different - a meal tray for convalescents. They were much harder times, but it was recognised that if you had been ill, it took time to get better (of course, without modern medicines, you might have been a great deal more ill).

I live in one of those crap former mining towns that voted Tory and for Brexit for some insane reason.

Never understood it.

A few weeks ago in high wind our garden fence fell down. The house behind it is derelict, and has an overgrown work yard. For 3 hours yesterday I could see a bloke in there, completely out of his tree on spice. Couldn't stand up, couldn't stay "awake". Would perch himself on a wall then fall off, get up and get back on. The cycle just kept repeating. He had a broken hand all bandaged up, and it was only 5 degrees here (felt colder). I kept an eye on him but after some time his mate showed up and they buggered off. Had he been there much longer I'd have looked for a local helpline.

How bad does your life have to be for you to decide to spend your Saturday doing that? We can fix our fence and move away, but something tells me that man has had a bloody hard life.

I'm not equating his life choices or status with Brexit voters, but yesterday I was presented with a broken man. The whole thing was utterly depressing. Our society is wrecked.

it's reminding me of reading about the German railways and the inevitability of WW1, which would obviously be a disaster that would wreck the European economies and slaughter their young men
but some old men wouldn't back down

Of course anything is possible, however, this isn't 1914 and we've far more accountability via democracy and the media.

My argument is that May et al having told us all how terrible a no-deal would be, then have zero defence if they then go ahead and do it! she cannot blame Labour or the EU because she knowingly went ahead with it.
No-deal will destroy the 'party with younger voters, a demographic they need if they are to survive, the potential loss of millions of jobs across manufacturing, rising prices will hit pensioners especially hard.

All this scare mongering is get her deal through, as a journalist said yesterday, she has Caesars complex, she now believes she is the "state" for this reason alone, her deal must be destroyed, if she can bully this through, what else?

As for things happening that have previously said 10000% will not, roll out UC has just been delayed :)
How many times were we told that could never ever happen?

www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/emilydugan/ministry-justice-staff-buzzfeed-journalist-bitch?__twitter_impression=true
Ministry Of Justice Staff Called A BuzzFeed Journalist “Crazy” And A “Bitch” After She Published A Leaked Report
A senior lawyer said heavily redacted internal MoJ messages obtained by BuzzFeed News showed staff were “deliberately frustrating legitimate journalistic inquiry”.

Penelope Gibbs, director of the charity Transform Justice, who was the first to push for the research to be made public, said: “No journalist should be subject to such abuse, particularly in pursuit of a legitimate and important story. It would be great if the Ministry of Justice would focus on the real problems faced by unrepresented defendants rather than on keeping information secret.”

And

The report was leaked to BuzzFeed News after the MoJ released a brief, sanitised, six-page summary of the research and claimed it was the full study and that no previous longer version existed. The subsequent article included conversations and an email with an MoJ press officer who had insisted the previous week that this substantive report did not exist. In the online chat, one staff member says “it’s shitty of her to quote the emails”.

Following the publication of the article, the press office’s response was to advise staff to “avoid talking to Emily Dugan on the phone in any more detail than is absolutely necessary” and to refuse to meet.

And

The Secret Barrister, the anonymous criminal barrister and author who rose to prominence after writing a book of the same name which exposed the crumbling of the justice system, said: “It is deeply concerning that civil servants in the Ministry of Justice appear to have been politicised to the extent that they are deliberately frustrating legitimate journalistic inquiry.

“From a department with an ignoble recent history of cover-ups and failures to disclose important information (as highlighted in High Court judgments), this is perhaps unsurprising, but nevertheless shocking. The sexist ‘banter’ and open contempt with which civil servants are discussing a respected journalist who is simply seeking information adds to fears of many in the legal profession that the culture in the Ministry of Justice has become toxic.”

The above is not a feature of a functioning democracy. A Ministry deliberately obstructing a journalist and flouting the law about Freedom of Information.

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Were written on the walls of the Ministry of Truth.

You can not have justice without transparency and trust.

wherearemychickens
Three blokes in a pub videos on Youtube has a programme on science and Brexit.

{Of course anything is possible, however, this isn't 1914 and we've far more accountability via democracy and the media.}
I am not sure this is really true. Granted with social media the whole world can be aware of atrocities, but knowing about it and holding the responsible to account is not really happening. We know almost daily about bombing in Syria and Turkey etc but it just continues.
We know about the increase in knife crime in the UK, and the home office thinks it may find a way to 'solve' it in 10 years, which since someone dies roughly every second day is simply not good enough.

{As for things happening that have previously said 10000% will not, roll out UC has just been delayed}
UC is not necessarily the problem in itself, it is the shambolic application that is so wrong. A compassionate government would introduce it with a significant fund behind it so that those below a certain threshold would automatically be paid the same day or within 2 days following assessment. The assessments should be properly conducted and always favour the public, with perhaps an upper limit (set quite high) for the duration of a 'probation' period in case of dispute.
Delaying UC is not necessarily the best solution as it leaves so many in 'limbo'.

No-deal will destroy the 'party with younger voters, a demographic they need if they are to survive, the potential loss of millions of jobs across manufacturing, rising prices will hit pensioners especially hard.

This only matters if you assume that they are operating rationally.

Brexit is a religion, and true BeLeavers would say that unbelievers will be made to see the Light of the Sunlit Uplands (those that won't are doomed to for eternity), and that all suffering in this life is worth it for rewards in the afterlife. And, ultimately if things get too complicated or difficult, "Kill them all, God will know His own."

Naomi Phillips @ msnaomiphillips
#NHSLongTermPlan @MattHancock on @RidgeOnSunday 'We need to see a big shift in the way that health services are delivered so that essentially we focus on #prevention as much as we do on cure... increasingly the focus needs to be on making sure we support people in the community'

Wasn't this how it was set up before cuts axed all the community services?

Brexit isn't a religion. It's a cult. With leaders using and abusing its members as they fleece them and line their own pockets. We await the suicidal phase of this cult, knowing the leaders are fully aware of how their manipulation is destructive but will leave them untouched.

Brexit isn't a religion. It's a cult.

Very true, RTB!

We are not Syria, e.g. major car manufacturer relocating cannot be hidden from us all, so unless May is about to halt democracy (and one reason why this megalomaniac must be stopped) we'll have a GE by 2022, the no deal cost will be known and the Tories could be history, like the Liberals were after WW1, they'll not risk this.

My point on UC is that minister after minister has said it will be rolled out, it cannot be stopped..... yet weeks later, it has been, doesn't matter re the pros and cons.

As said "a policy is only a policy until it isn't" Vote down her deal and other options become available....assuming there is even another vote?

The 100,000 elderly tory members wont win her a GE and though she cares about her party, the 300+ Tory MPs care very much more about their jobs electorate, who will turn on the Tories for causing this with their incompetence, so she/MPs wont allow it.

It depends on how much money those people have.

Russia has 'elections' and has a 'justice system' and 'journalists'.

I wish people would stop making comparisons to Russia and Syria, we are neither.
May doesn't order hits on journalists nor does she drop barrel bombs on remain voting constituencies.......yet lol!

We are a democracy and May cannot circumvent this inconvenient (for her) fact.

I come back to UC, a policy set in stone... cannot be changed, will be rolled out... now "delayed"

we'll have a GE by 2022

Given the chaos that no deal Brexit has the potential to unleash, I'm afraid that I am no longer confident that this statement is a certainty.

If we lurch into unrest of levels unseen in hundreds of years in the UK, and be under no illusion that Brexit could produce this, then it would be easy for a government to claim it was currently 'unsafe' to hold an election at that time. No doubt citing Jo Cox as they do so, to try and persuade those trusting enough of the legimacy of their undemocratic behaviour.

Let me point out once again.

We currently are displaying numerous failure points in our democractic system. At some point soon we are in danger of crossing that line into no longer actually being a democracy. Some would argue we've already crossed it.

This by definition means that free and fair elections occurring when they should, should absolutely not be something you assume will happen and should take for granted.

The warning signs are there. Hed them.

I'm with RTB - any kind of "It couldn't happen here" is, I fear, naive.

We are a democracy

Are we?

What are the features of a democracy? Are all the branches of a democracy functioning as they should with the proper checks and balances to power? Is justice universal or limited only to those who can afford it? Is government open and transparent and can representatives of the people be held to account by the press? Are the press independent of politicians? Is the justice system independent of politicians? Is the civil service free to speak the truth to power or is there a culture of fear silencing many? Do independent bodies feel free to publish their findings without fear of being labelled as politically biased because certain politicians might not like it?

Feel the fear there is to freedom. It's there. And it's worrying.

If a no-deal were to occur, then yes, a GE could be postponed and democracy threatened, another reason why a no-deal won't happen but even at the height of the poll tax riots, of pit closures, the 3 day week and the winter of discontent, GE's still happened, things would need to get very very bad indeed before a Gov could justify no GE.

We still a democracy, MP's can still vote down her government, parliament still sits & she would be forced to go.

However, i do find Mays tactics very scary and very damaging to democracy, she has re-written the rule books on how a government behaves.
Yet another reason to stand up to her and vote down her deal.......

I agree with Red re elections. My late DF didn't get to vote until he was 28 as a result of them being suspended during the war, until after VE day. I think he could have expected to vote at age 23.

Then the electorate booted Churchill out, in no uncertain fashion, I think very much to the surprise of the upper classes. As we have see from these thread, although the Leavers now lionise Churchill, he had a mixed record at best. The incoming Labour Government, having served in the Coalition were very much more experienced that any Opposition has been since.

I would personally still hope for a cross party Coalition - a genuine one, not the travesty that Cameron cooked up in 2010 and Clegg fell for.

{We are a democracy and May cannot circumvent this inconvenient (for her) fact. }
So, in theory are many countries, Russia and Syria among them. Those who know about democratic theories could no doubt explain and expand this train of thought.

What level of 'unrest' would be necessary in the UK to declare martial law? 1 Million on the streets perhaps?
The UK judicial system is far too slow, allowing situations to change radically before adjudicating. Those who told lies in the referendum have not yet been taken to task, so 2 1/2 years on the lies are still being repeated, deliberately muddying the waters for an honest debate.

There will be no vote on the WA. That way it can't be defeated.

Remember that political logjam ? Now vote on Universal Credit being "delayed" ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46772901

I really don't care what people say should happen, or "are supposed to happen^. I am going to say here and now that the absolute spinelessness of the HoC over the past 2 years has led the Government to believe they can rule by decree, without wasting time with silly votes in parliament. And until I see evidence otherwise, that's what's happening folks. All aided by a now partisan civil service that will simply do what they are told regardless of the legality. Probably having had some mentoring from the Home Office. After, all Amber Rudd was Home Secretary, so quite at ease with being in charge of a lawbusting government department.

Obviously such moves might be challenged in court. But only by the rich. And only when it's too late.

Even quite senior judges are now saying that the legal system is broken, and as mostly privately educated people, you might think that they are in a bubble and don't care, but obviously some do.

Venezuela is now a 'basket case' in terms of it's economy. Not so long ago it had an economy that rivaled the UK. Successive mis-management and corruption has destroyed a country with massive potential. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the UK is 'special' and 'those sort of things don't happen here', they do, and will.
The UK government has issued at least 60 NDAs to silence significant chunks of industry to keep the extent of this Brexit balls up 'under wraps'.
This is not the action of an open and responsible government with the best outcome for the citizens in mind.
Since Churchill has been mentioned, he was 'the right man for the job' at the time (decisive enough to wage war) but not suited to peace.
He organised the Navy to cut off the supply of steel from Northern Sweden to Germany, to reduce the German production of tanks etc. Shilly shallying in parliament and curtailment of Churchills plan resulted in several thousand sailors dying and the loss of several ships, and as it was an operation that was time critical the delay allowed Germany to maintain production.

There will be no vote on the WA. That way it can't be defeated

How can it then become law?
But yes i can see May postponing again & again but eventually, she will have to accept reality, its a self defeating policy though, the more you push and bully people, the more they kick back e.g.the tactics of remainers with leavers has just entrenched views.

The UC vote is still going to happen but for a far smaller number of claimants -10k - to be moved across.

Theresa May says that politicians need to vote for her WA in the upcoming vote which may or may not happen because "Moments such as these require pragmatism"

It's obviously one of those irregular activities:

• You are pragmatic
• They are rebels
• I am right

Belated Place Mat King, a quarter of the way into the thread

The UK government has issued at least 60 NDAs

One such organisation was apparently the road haulage association, yet on yesterday's news, their spokesman stated that "a no-deal Brexit will be a disaster and we do not have the licences to drive lorries in/out of europe"

Be it uni's, drug companies, car industry, the police, security forces, ferry companies....they are all saying how bad no-deal will be and the media are all reporting it.
Few are listening but you can't legislate for stupidity.

So who is being told to shut up?