Westminstenders: Red Squirrels are British. Groundhogs are not.

[RedToothBrush]

Well the good news is we haven't got a GE yet, and it looks unlike one will be called this week. Purely because we haven't got a crisis point looming this week.

May has officially confirmed plan A is plan B. But says she will try and get more on the backstop whilst working with the DUP. Barnier and Ireland have said 'no'

We now prepare for the Meaningful Vote II.

And a week of speculation about amendments.

Here's a quick summary of likely ones:
Guardian Article on possible amendments

I think the Labour one will struggle to gain Tory support. The big thing about it is leans the party line firmly towards a customs union.

The Grieve one is handicapped by talk of a minority of 300 taking control of Parliament. Otherwise it might have support.

The two most interesting are:

The Benn 'Indicative Vote' as its reflective of the Brexit Select Committee recommendations.

The Cooper-Boles Block No Deal amendment which is cross party and seeks to place a final date on May passing her deal by 26th Feb, after which Parliament will take control. This I believe is being supported by Labour as a whole.

Bercow of course gets to say which amendments are debated and voted on but Benn and Cooper-Boles have broad support so are unlikely to be ignored by him. The two together seem to compliment each other.

The rest of this week is likely to be lobbying on this but otherwise fairly calm. Though someone is bound to throw a few curveball in there with leaks.

The only other thing to watch out for is talk of up to 40 ministers quitting if they are not allowed a free vote on some sort of indicative vote motion. This seems to be being lead by Amber Rudd. But I don't expect this to come to a head until the weekend at the earliest.

In other words, we have a couple of days of calm before the storm. Expect it to ramp up again at the weekend in craziness.

That other thread is an eye opener in to the level of stupidity some voters have. Some people shouldn't be allowed to vote. I realise that's undemocratic though

I posted this yesterday but I think it's worth reposting as it's relevant to current conversation

www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-theresa-may-leave-voters-remain-eu-referendum-campaign-deal-a8740526.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true
It's an opinion piece by otto English

In it he points out the following:

Forget the “people’s will” – all evidence demonstrates that the “people’s ignorance” is staggering. Around half of adults don’t know who their MP is while just 11 per cent can name one of their MEPs. A survey carried out in the run up to the 2015 general election revealed that 69 per cent of Britons confessed to having “no interest in politics” while a staggering 59 per cent couldn’t even name the then-prime minister, David Cameron.

I’m wondering if the government is actually going to have to start offering information on the implications of No Deal soon. If that is the track we are heading down, it is highly irresponsible not to be informing the public of what that means and what preparations they need to make.

So many people don’t seem to have considered the impact of disrupted supplies. Surely, there is a gross dereliction of duty on the government’s part if it is withholding information which would help people prepare?

The trouble is... "project fear". It's already always really hard to overcome normalcy bias, so we lose people there. Then we lose those who don't want to hear with "project fear". Then we have a chunk of contradictory information even from unchecked sources, false equivalence and then we lose more people in the "ooh you can't tell what's going to happen can you?" quagmire. Bastards.

remember 26% of bloody people TWENTY SIX can't distinguish between no deal and no brexit.

I don't think that's true, it was an artefact of the way the poll was designed. Other polls have come up with a much smaller number. But it is certainly true that some people think no deal = status quo, and most other people who support no deal do not really know what it means.

Well, the mobilisation of the army should be a clue.

Seriously, if you can't understand the implications of that, it's hard to imagine anything reaching you. ☹️

@thecatfromjapan mobilisation of the army? What have I missed? Skim reading whilst getting everyone ready for school

I don't think anyone can tell exactly what will happen. I do think you can look at the issues and risks and work out a probability of problems in certain areas.

It's just this approach is not something those people who say 'ah it's project fear' are ever going to do. Because why should they.

It's born of the idea that ultimately no government would enable something that catastrophic.

Except they have.

It's the ability to conceive of anything beyond their experience nor have a sense of empathy.

It's incredibly insular. But then that's also reflective of the mindset of many who you could describe as 'somewheres' who are very much in conflict with 'anywheres' who are more naturally the bedfellows of the EU anyway.

Yes 5000 troops on standby.

Some years ago now but a relative was being assessed for cognitive competence (or whatever it's called) following a head injury.
Doctor: What is the name of the Prime MInister?
Relative:
Doctor: Are you sure?
Relative: Yes.
Doctor: Oh yes, you are - I was thinking

You are right

Oh and finally...

The Turkey That Voted For Christmas by Madeleine Cook and Samara Hardy

. But also and

Somehow, last night, when trying to keep my list small enough I missed my absolute favourite, To Kill a Mockingbird. Great to see all your suggestions. Thank you.

On the book list I'm surprised nobody has mentioned The Road.

We'll need some sort of field manual in the event of the coming apocalypse.

To help understand the background to Brext, Trump

"The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism" by Naomi Klein

even DUP supporters favour a soft Brexit

https://sluggerotoole.com/2019/01/22/opinion-may-be-swinging-but-even-dup-supporters-are-in-favour-a-soft-brexit-what-are-the-dup-doing-to-help-bring-this-about/

A majority of supporters of all five of Northern Ireland’s main parties – unionist, nationalist and neither –

would prefer to see the whole of the UK stay in the customs union and single market,

compared to either the UK leaving both, or Northern Ireland leaving on a different basis to the rest of the UK.

.....this includes 58% of DUP supporters and 70% of Sinn Féin voters.

It is rare to find such a broad popular consensus in Northern Ireland on such a salient issue.

David Henig
‏

@DavidHenigUK
56m56 minutes ago
More
The cost of not ruling out no deal is substantial - the inability to prepare properly for the future to be put alongside business delivering their no deal plans in many cases moving things to other countries. And for what purpose?

Companies are implementing their no deal plan

Book
Food for Free - Richard Mabey

I did like this response from Anna Soubry:

I sometimes feel like saying "Okay, have your wretched hard deal in all its ghastliness" but that would be so irresponsible and we have to put our national interest first, and getting rid of no deal is the absolutely the right thing to do.

It felt very human - and echoes some of my own suppressed thoughts about the potential for a hard/No Deal Brexit to hasten Scottish independence.

Mrsr8. I’m not reading much atm. To be honest, all my available reading time is taken trying to keep up with these threads (for someone whose actual job for many years involved reading a huge number of books I’m a surprisingly slow reader. Or rather, I can read fast, but only if I don’t actually want to remember any of it...) but I dream of a day when this isn’t the case.

Maybe, one day, when this is all just a ghastly memory (I know, I know...) we could have a Westministenders online reading group...

It’s clear the people do not want TM’s Deal.
Well the ones that shout loudest!!
So agreeing to TM’s Deal would be betrayal to them.
How can that be agreed?
Brexiteer MPs who have got a wee bit of common sense realise that No Deal is a catastrophe and could never support that ( I hope)
Yes there idealogical belief is we should leave the E.U. but at what cost.

So to me the only option is to revoke article 50 get ourselves sorted and look again in 10 years time or so.

This would piss of a lot of people and who can blame them. But the unrest created by no deal will surely be worse and the consequences far far more serious.

I am kind of hoping that a Brexiteer MP stands up and says this is not going to work. We have tried but it’s a fools errand.

I’m sure Boris Johnson would quite happily do that if it meant he could be PM one day

As a non English Brit (living in England) I am not feeling very proud to be British at all at the moment.
The hate on Social media (not my friends personally but FB need pages) to anyone who is not English is horrible.
I know it’s mostly trolls but they are getting a voice and are being supported by others.

From earlier, who will blink first:
{Unlikely to be EU (unless they are genuinely worrying about upcoming recession.)}
My take would be that if an EU recession looks likely, at this stage they would NOT want the UK to be part of the EU as they will need strong stable and affluent help, not the UK which can't decide how to tie it's shoelaces, will be on a significant financial downturn and with a significant number of MPs who have stated they would like to see the destruction of the EU.
If you were traversing a dangerous road, would you fill the back of the car with Millwall hooligans?

Just seen headline about Fox saying "delaying brexit would be a betrayal of democracy"

Surely a bigger "betrayal" is a bunch of incompetent self-serving politicians ignoring - no despising - what's best for the country in the name so some hare-brained lunacy. That's "betraying" the entire country

Speaking of entire cunts ....

"If you knock on a door and they have books on their shelves, you can be pretty sure these days they’re not voting Tory.”

Oh. My. God.