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.

Should this happen (and I still think some form of deal will be voted through so that it doesn't), it seems pretty obvious to me who is responsible.

Sorry, i’m notsure I understand your point. Are you saying that if a hard border is erected, it will be the EU’s fault, and therefore it in some way doesn’t matter??

If a majority in Parliament are against NO DEAL, and are obviously against the WA. What is left now?

All the talk about GE, People’s vote, Extend A50 sound pie in the sky to me at this stage. I suppose (sigh) Revoke is an outside bet!

Leo Varadker I’m sure has been very well advised regarding the wording, timing and tone of his Davos statement.

About time someone laid it on the table. I bet Ireland is thinking - here we go again with the arrogant hubristic Brits fucking us over again for the sake of ten Neanderthal DUP members.

It’s a sorry unnecessary mess.

As an aside, my sixth form class use "Brexit means Brexit" as code for "I haven't got a clue".

(And before I get accused of influencing them, they did it before they even started in my class in September.)

@rebel Anna Soubry's Webchat was here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnetlivee_events/3485256-Webchat-with-Anna-Soubry-on-Brexit-and-beyond-Tuesday-22-January-at-10-30am

Next webchat with 3 experts:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnetlivee_events/3487289-Webchat-with-three-experts-on-Brexit-and-the-EU-on-Thursday-24-January-11-30am

Agree with your last point Red! Since I began buying the Guardian over 2 decades ago, I have probably read a very high proportion of the pieces Polly Toynbee has written for it, and I still read every one that I can.

LouiseCollins28
When you get your dream of leaving the EU, what are your suggestions for employment for the workers at Airbus and it's feeder companies?
Someone needs co come up with an idea and it may as well be you.
I put up my ideas to really help the NHS and provide employment for retrained car workers last week.

I did not say for one second that a hard border in Ireland "doesn't matter" it certainly does matter, and for the record I think the common travel area has existed since 1923. What I said was, Her Majesty's Government will not erect one.

I did not say for one second that a hard border in Ireland "doesn't matter" it certainly does matter, and for the record I think the common travel area has existed since 1923. What I said was, Her Majesty's Government will not erect one.

Maybe they'll expect Ireland to pay for it ?

Airbus have suggested (having been put up to doing so by members of the Government it would seem) that their continued investment in the UK would be at risk if the UK left the EU with "no deal."

The best was to avoid "no deal" our parliamentarians must be aware by now, is to vote for "deal." If this happens, I can't see an obvious reason for Airbus to discontinue its investment in the UK.

Her Majesty's government needs to sort out something at the NI Ireland border in order to have control over its trading area as required by WTO. Doesn't have to be a hard border but it has to be something.
The Withdrawal Agreement gave us the breathing space to find a technological solution. The backstop made sure we didn't just think "fuck it" after the end of tbe transition period if we couldn't sort it out.
ERG claim a technological solution is easy to find. In which case we don't need the backstop.
Varadkar pointed out that we need some kind of agreement to honour GFA. If we don't honour GFA we'll have a hard time getting anyone to trust us in Deal making.
So we do it now via WA or we do it after when we are desperate.

What I said was, Her Majesty's Government will not erect one

Isn’t this Jacob Rees Mogs position. The U.K. won’t put in a hard boarder. The E.U. won’t put in a hard boarder.
Therefore there is no problem with a hard boarder on the island of Ireland.

Just so long as those voices are all "Remainers" hey?... bit like that Mumsnet webchat thing today.

LouiseCollins28 the professors addressed these concerns twice on the webchat.

First: Prof Anand Menon's post of 12.07
"I don't like the notion of a pro-Brexit expert. What we do is report the results of the research. Sometimes that might help one side (we reported research during the referendum that showed the Govt had underestimated the number of EU nationals in the country) or the other our work on the fact that no deal would be disruptive). If you're openly pro one side or the other, you're a campaigner."

Second: Prof Jonathan Portes post of 11.47
"One of the key reasons for our programme - www.ukandeu.ac.uk - is precisely to get expert evidence in to the public domain."

It's interesting that Mumsnet has invited JRM to come on one of these webchats - and he agreed - but has now pulled out!

But why are not more Brexiteers coming forward? Perhaps Peter Bone would like to come on and put his case that everyone is making a fuss about the NI border for nothing, when even the WTO have said themselves that they will need to be checks, especially on animal products, in the event of no deal.

Congratulations on the new job, rebel
Always a relief to have decent money coming in regularly

That's good news about the Macedonia / Greece situation , DG
It's been grumbling along for about 15 years
So talking and mediation have finally done the trick

Her Majesty's Government will not erect one.
Won't they? Will they have a choice?

If we choose not to build one, we have to align to the EU and have a close relationship as a single country if we want to keep NI the same as the rest of the country.

If we go to WTO terms both EU and WTO rules require the EU and the UK to have secure external borders with regards to trade. If we choose to ignore this there will be consequences to that.

The third option is for NI to have a separate arrange to the rest of the UK with the EU. This option is the one that the DUP oppose and May is supporting.

There is no fourth option that anyone has currently thought up and thought in any way viable.

And thats the real problem and stumbling block for Brexit as a whole. Its the entire crux of the deadlock.

We don't exist outside current international rules and conventions. We can not just go back to how the arrangement was in 1923. Or any other time in history.

We might not like this, but thats how it is in practical terms not merely an ideal that hasn't been put into the real world.

The best was to avoid "no deal" our parliamentarians must be aware by now, is to vote for "deal." If this happens, I can't see an obvious reason for Airbus to discontinue its investment in the UK.

I both agree and disagree with you on that.

The problem for Airbus is that the WA is only a transition phase. It still does not conclude what the eventual trading relationship with the EU might be.

There are many who would still like the eventual trading relationship to be outside the customs union and/or the single market.

This IS relevant to Airbus. And they might yet still decide that the outcome of the eventual trade deal isn't good for their business model.

In reality business needs the government to adopt a commitment to the customs union as a bare minimum.

The trouble with that is the ERG and Brexiteer campaigning to be outside of that.

We need to find a balance between distancing ourselves from the EU and being close to the EU for Leave to work. As it stands we aren't close to that.

Its about pragmatism rather than idealism. I personally feel that to a degree there isn't a full appreciation of that from some remain quarters. Which will be controversial to even admit to for some. Personally I would like to remain BUT I can see validity to leaving under some circumstances.

I don't know what further to add to that.

@sproutingcorn

I really shouldn't have to do this, but....so, the folks MN had on their webchat today work for "UK in a Changing Europe"

ukandeu.ac.uk/

This claims to be an "independent source" for "authoritative research" and, to be fair, they have some good people writing pieces for them.

Howver, reading what Prof. Menon and Prof. Portes have written for their site, and many other publications, leaves me in no doubt whatever that they are both "Remain" supporters. If the organisation is unbiased why did it not put up contributors with different opinions on the question when asked? assuming they were asked to do this?

Lastly, uk in a changing Europe receives research funding from the Economic and Social Research Council...
esrc.ukri.org/

Who receive funding from.....the European Union
esrc.ukri.org/research/international-research/horizon-2020/

Its about pragmatism rather than idealism. I personally feel that to a degree there isn't a full appreciation of that from some remain quarters. Which will be controversial to even admit to for some. Personally I would like to remain BUT I can see validity to leaving under some circumstances.

I'd happily accept leaving the EU if all the promises made by the leave campaign are fulfilled. Otherwise, count me out. "Pragmatism" in this context is simply an attempt by Brexiteers to get Remainers to do their dirty work.

LouiseCollins28
afaik, The UK will indeed have to impose border checks - because of WTO rules

Every country must be treated the same unless we have a trade deal with them
and when we leave the EU, we lose all our non-EU trade deals too
Fox has just managed a limited deal with Switzerland for a v small % of our trade, that's about it.

The alternative is that the Uk will have to have open trade borders - including no tariffs, no phytosanitary checks, no electrical safety checks ...- for all the other countries in the world, not just the EU

So that's unchecked goods from Africa, Asia, China - remember the poisoned baby formula horror ? - and afaik, not just through the NI border, but through all ports & airports throughout the UK.

The UK would have to make a very convincing case for other WTO members to accept NI as a special case and not impose trade sanctions against the UK when their own goods were checked, but not RoI goods.

So probably no country would do trade deals with us - because an open borders for their goods, while they can still stop UK goods ! - is better for them than an possible trade deal

And I think if we want the Uk to stay together then this is not an option.

Which does raise the question as to how many people in the UK want the UK to stay together ? For myself (in England) it's always been a question that's up to the respective countries.

oops, crosspost with red in my post to louise

I think more and more that the best outcome (for me personally, selfishly) would be for the UK to split up and Scotland to remain in the EU. I could (I'm assuming) claim residency through having a parent who was born there, and/or marry my Scottish-born DP, and we could go back to live in Glasgow. There are many worse places.

Although, while I wouldn't miss being shackled to Little England, I would miss the Big Smoke horribly.

But Northern Ireland already has a different regime from the rest of the UK in lots of ways. Apart from human rights issues like marriage equality and women’s right to chose there are and always have been lots of other differences.
The DUP are picking what suits them.