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's a fair point, but I still think that it would be wrong to give answers (that could be taken to be authoritative because from an MP) on a subject that one has to suspect she isn't an expert in. I was quite impressed, I thought that give the horrible format which is totally unsuited to Q&As she came over as sincere and ready to engage.

I don't disagree that Soubry, in general, came across well on that web chat. I get very frustrated at the lack of politican's attention on NI in general though and Derry in particular. (As I've said before, the city closest to the 'border', and a Catholic city.) It feeds the extremists when we are seemingly dismissed without a thought, even after the trauma of the past few days.

As another Derry girl just messaged me, I wonder if she'd have answered my question if I called the place in question "Londonderry".

The WA is not the answer - it is a way in to a blind situation that could be anything. It could still be hard brexit, no deal or whatever.

Yep blind Brexit and potentially 10 years + of wrangling and uncertainty.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on which outcome is most terrifying Tatiana
I would say that with the WA, wherever the rUK ends up in terms of future relationship, at least there wouldn't also be a civil war within the UK again. (Even a no deal, after WA, would be rUK and not involve NI.) Which isn't to say I support the WA - I can see it's shit for many people, and particularly unfair to the Scottish. But if I was an MP I would have to vote for it, because my worst case scenario is the GFA being torn up, and it prevents that.

2bees was just skimming the thread to see if you've check in. How been thinking about you. Sending lots of love ❤

Somerville
You are obviously of the 'new generation' who are happy to discuss openly.
I was banned from MN for asking some open questions months back.
Watching that particular thread, there were a couple of pages worth of 'arguments' and disgust over the name Eire, (a name that had been used in the past but is now technically incorrect). The vast majority on the whole of the Island of Ireland want to move forwards in peace which is as it should be.

{The WA is not the answer - it is a way in to a blind situation that could be anything. It could still be hard brexit, no deal or whatever.

Yep blind Brexit and potentially 10 years + of wrangling and uncertainty.}
Missing the point that it is not burning the bridges immediately and it is very obvious that the UK is approximately equally split, so the UK in the next 6 months, year or whenever needs to resolve what the hell it really wants. Don't forget NO ONE has explained HOW the UK economy will recover, let alone prosper beyond what it would have done within the UK.
The WA allows a period of reflection without trashing the UK and seriously damaging the EU which at the end of the day the UK will HAVE to do sensible deals with.

As another Derry girl just messaged me, I wonder if she'd have answered my question if I called the place in question "Londonderry".

Outside of the island of Ireland there are very, very few people who have an opinion one way or the other on this so I doubt that was a factor in Soubry's decision to answer or not...

I don’t think the WA does protect from civil war. The only way to get their vaunted FTA is for the Tories to ditch NI in the backstop as per the agreement. What will Loyalist paramilitaries have to say about that?

So no, I think WA is highly problematic for NI.

*No brexit means the GFA won't be torn up.

A CU and SM stops the GFA being torn up.*

Sure. And I'd much prefer either, and if I could see a strong route to one or the other maybe I'd be tempted to hold my nerve (in the alternate universe where I'm an MP!) and reject WA. But the people pushing for those need to be aware of the risks for the whole country, including those in the 'border' regions of NI, if they fail. And those wanting to achieve those scenarios via a PV need to be particularly aware of the damage they could do to the GFA with a no-deal option on the ballot.

leClerc Discussion is great. Calling Ireland Eire (while speaking English) is a somewhat understandable error for those who don't know the history of the use of that term. However I've explained it to people myself on MN and IRL, who sometimes insetad of saying oops/shit/sorry/mea culpa (like most people do) have responded with being able to use that term if they want to. That's the difference.

It's like with any cultural error. We all make them. You should have heard the mistakes I made in referring to people (especially those from other countries, who I hadn't encountered before) incorrectly when I moved to England. I then corrected myself, said sorry, and learned for the future.

Interestingly, back in November I asked my friend whether she was worried about violence starting in the event of a hard Brexit.

She laughed and thought the idea was ridiculous even though she's from just outside Derry (Muff).

I'm not seeing her now for a week or more but I'd be interested to see if she's changed her mind. I was quite taken aback that she was so confident it wouldn't happen.

Outside of the island of Ireland there are very, very few people who have an opinion one way or the other on this

Ha! That's why English people correct me constantly, is it, because they don't have an opinion one way or the other?!

@Somerville Sorry to ask you to repeat yourself. I don't refer to Eire but could you let me know the background/why it would be offensive?

Eire - a name that had been used in the past but is now technically incorrect.

Perhaps if you thought of it like the Latin word for black it might help.

@Somerville

Do they? Blimey...

I guess I move in different crowds. I wonder if they (the people who correct) had associations with the British Army back in the day?

Is it people of older generations?

Yup, umpteenth. And no, not entirely older generations. Though those do it a lot. PIL still (tries to) correct me sometimes, though he's generally reasonable on most things (and happens to be a remainer). Lots of people of all ages think they need to uphold the 'Britishness' of NI by saying L'derry. Others are just parroting what they hear in English media and in HoC yet don't believe me that other opinions are available; I must be wrong about the name of the city I was born in because all the MP's say L'derry, or something like that, their argument seems to go.

I can make no claim to any expertise on NI other than having been there once (which is more than you need to be appointed NI minister, so I must be an "expert") - but if the WA agreement were forced through against the will of the DUP doesn't that also piss off a group with a history of and a motive for violence?

Is there now a solution to Brexit that is risk free for NI?

I don't know the legal name. Do cities have a legal name? Official name, maybe. And that is probably still the one imposed by the British, because our language and place names and forenames were banned, and NI still does not have the irish language act that we were promised. But I do know that the offical name of many places, eg Henley-on-Thames, is not what it is actually called. I bet Boris Johnson doesn't get corrected on a weekly (at least) basis for just saying Henley, does he?

Right, getting down from the lecturn and heading out on school run.

but if the WA agreement were forced through against the will of the DUP doesn't that also piss off a group with a history of and a motive for violence?

Exactly.

I have no claim to any kind of opinion of NI politics. And I may dislike everything about the DUP, but their opposition to the backstop is perfectly rational. Violence aside.

If the backstop came unto force it would genuinely damage links between NI and rUK.

NI would stay in SMCU and be prevented from leaving on the same terms as rUK.

rU.K. companies shipping goods to the the North will need a customs declaration because, by law, they will be operating from a third country.

In the short term, the British government will have to make sure rules in NI and RUK are harmonised, but future administrations would not be bound by this afaict.

The regulations will be set by Brussels, who will no doubt try to act in what they see NI best interest, but the fact is NI voters will not be able to hold them to account.

If NI is impeded from leaving the EU on the same terms as rUK, then its voters are not being treated the same, nor did their vote count in the referendum on equal terms. In which case they don’t hold same rights and their citizenship is arguably restricted.

Can Russian bots sign petitions or are there that many far right gammons with lobotomies with the ability to use technology ?

Change.org allows anyone with an email to sign, though I believe it may check for duplicates.
Phone-ins to the radio are dominated by those who have time on their hands. People who are working or have caring responsibilities do not have time; many don’t want to put themselves forward.

So we pander to the vocal few simply because they shout the loudest.

The regulations will be set by Brussels, who will no doubt try to act in what they see NI best interest, but the fact is NI voters will not be able to hold them to account.

I'm sure the EU could bring in something allowing EU citizens not resident in an EU country to have a vote. There may even be an argument for an NI MEP or representative of some sort seeing as it's such a large concentration of EU citizens. If I was Sinn Féin I'd be looking into it.

As things stand, I'd imagine there is absolutely nothing to stop any politicians from NI from running in the Irish European elections. I haven't looked into it but there's nothing to stop them running for our parliament or presidency, so I don't see how it could be different.

What affects the north of Ireland affects all of Ireland.

Thanks, red 💐

maybe related to bots ....

I've vaguely wondered a few times why I so rarely see Westministenders on Active, when they must be the busiest threads most of the time

It took our clever TiP to think of actually asking the question - and MN revealed they avoid letting threads go into Active if they are reported a lot !
So thanks, TiP 💐

Did someone or some group knew MN procedures sufficiently well to keep reporting Westministenders ? 🤔
We hardly ever get deletions, except of the occasional troll - until Hazard was deleted for calling out UKIP's disgraceful tolerance of domestic abuse
So this @MNHQ censorship - whether planned or serendipitous for Brexiters - was never even on our radar 🤔

I posted my concerns on her thread:

the most effective censorship is by those we trust, because we never even realise it is happening

I was naive enough to trust @MNHQ before this, except for their extreme sensitivity on FWR,
which I put down to unique TRA / commercial pressures

Someone on the previous thread felt understandably aggrieved that Theresa Mays speech effectively said that it was more important to deliver what the one-off usually politically dormant voters wanted over the wishes of regular voters.

Essentially, politics is suffering the same crisis that insurance (and other sectors) are facing: the difficulty in bringing in new customers (voters) over the effort involved in keeping existing customers.

"Lifelong" voters of both sides - Labour and Tory - have fallen foul of the need for their parties to attract new blood. At the expense of the old.

And in the same way businesses struggle to deal with that issue - so it seems politics has it's problems too.