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.

Highly recommended to understand where we are - Ivan Rogers speech yesterday:
www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/news/2019/jan/sir-ivan-rogers-brexit-lecture-text-and-video

FULL TEXT OF THE LECTUREE* (pdf)

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/sites/european-institute/files/sirivannrogerslectureeucl_22012019.pdf

O* (introductions etc take up the 1st 15 mins !)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?t=&v=-PxpHNXIKnY

www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/brexit-european-union-eu-passport-visa-rules-strasbourg-travel-permit-etas-a8631916.html

Not sure if this will be a clicky link but the article states that business meetings will be included in the visa waiver, which would make sense because I know they are for our US colleagues. Our Russian colleagues need a Schengen visa.
Of course all of this relies on the UK offering the same deal to the UK at present.

To the EU
motherofourdragons

bigchoc taaaaaaa

Belatedly, more for the Westministerenders Bookshelves in the Bunker: * (Somerville* I love love love those bookshelves)

All of Waugh
All of Brontes
All of Mitford
Hamlet and Macbeth
Life after life and a God in ruins ( Kate Atkinson)
Canterbury Tales
A good poetry anthology
French country cooking ( Elizabeth David)
Rough Guide to France
How to Eat ( N Lawson)
A voyager out: a life of Mary Kingsley ( Katherine Frank) biog of a redoubtable Victorian lady adventurer
The Brontes (Juliet Barker)

Too full of pain-killers to process everything.
Is Rees-Mogg planning on marching the Queen into parliament to announce the colonisation of Ireland?

If you're putting poetry on the shelves make sure it contains John Donne's erotic poems. Makes me come over all aquiver.

God yes villainess

red, mother My (german) employer confirms it would only be a formality to get a visa for me

• they have no problems getting visas for scientists and techies from India, China, Korea etc in may dept.

My HR chum here says that this would apply for any UK employee that a firm in the E27 actually wants to keep

Also, that under EU law after 5 years residence - so maybe using the visa above until then -
any 3rd country citizen would be entitled to apply for either renewable 5-year residence permits or permanent residence, where the latter may require passing a language test.

If you are a higher earner and / or scientist, the 5-year period may be waived and you can apply for longterm residence after 3 years - (that's me, hooray !)

So red If your DH's firm has registered offices in say Germany, they should be able to organise a visa for him to work there - and for you all to live there - pretty easily.

My large tech firm grabs the geeks it wants from India, Korea etc and organises visa for them - standard practice for us at least.
Of course their spouses and kids accompany them from the start

I cannot stand Waugh. Arrogant class-obsessed little twerp.

twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1088129131605303297

Jim Pickard
‏*@PickardJE*

David Davis has just disclosed a new £60,000-a-year job at JCB, whose chairman is pro-Brexit Anthony Bamford publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/190121/davis_david.htm …

Here's a newly disclosed £10,000 gift to Boris Johnson from JC Bamford Excavators publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/190121/johnson_boris.htm …

Name of donor: J C Bamford Excavators Ltd
Amount of donation, or nature and value if donation in kind: £10,000
Date received: 15 January 2019

and here's JCB's payments to Dan Hannan via @PrivateEyeNews

My concern would be about my status as a partner of a scientist. I am worried about having fewer protections.

I don't know.

DH has politics going on with work atm which are causing us a mountain of stress on top of Brexshit, so its not helping.

Great to hear mrs r8. There is always a special,affinity with those of similar reading tastes I find!

When I got together with ex dh we discovered that both of our extensive book collections overlapped to an astonishing degree. So many duplicates. We are still passing the stray volume back to each other and we have been divorced nearly a decade...

A very millennial poetry book suggestion...

Milk and honey by rupi kaur

Wear a daisy crown and drink a herbal tea while reading and perhaps ignore the articles that excuse her of copying...

Ah, I still remember from half a century ago, learning by rote and still there 😀

Robert Louis Stevenson:

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

But- Westministenders and cat-lovers, who wrote this ?
(Silvia Plack ?)

"Day long this tom cat lies stretched flat like an old rough mat ......
continual wars and wives have battered his ears and tattered his tail"

and - in a dystopian England in which the only animals are in zoos:

"we're off to see the rabbit
we're off to see the rabbit
which rabbit ?
The only rabbit in England"

Oh he was Tatiana. definitely. Not a pleasant individual at all. Cruel amongst much else.

But a very fine writer in my opinion. And he makes me laugh. I can separate the work from the creator in my mind.

Nothing to do with Waugh but God I've forgotten under milk wood.

@DGRossetti Just catching up on the thread and got to your YT link...I'm friends with one of the co-writers for Jonathan Pie

Not Sylvia Plath bcf but Ted Hughes.

Evening all. I'm reading other threads with increasing dismay at the bad feeling between those in NI and the ROI, and the "British/English." The B/E are often lumped into an unsavoury "anti-Irish/Ireland/no one gives a fuck about us" type sentiment. Brexit has resurrected simmering tensions and I fucking hate it. I've always thought of myself as English but my maternal grandfather's family were Irish (I never knew them). I'd hate to be viewed as a "side" as it were and am very anxious about the potential for renewed violence especially after the car bomb in Derry. Brexit is dividing people and creating hostility and some are tarring the English/British with the same brush. It's fucking awful and I'm ashamed of what this government is doing.

Grinchly Nothing to do with Waugh but God I've forgotten under milk wood.

Thanks for the reminder re Under Milk Wood. I've listened to the Dylan Thomas reading enough times to have his voice in my ear while reading the words to myself. Likewise with Eliot's reading of Four Quartets.

And somewhere Chaucer read in ME. Although unfortunately not read by Chaucer

PMK
too tired to read 345 posts since yesterday!

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/Parliament-next-steps-Brexit

The Institute for Government explainer on what happens on 29th Jan complete with explanations of all significant amendments tabled. It's being updated daily

Perverse what threads?