Westminstenders: Waiting for Sanity

[RedToothBrush]

We could be waiting a long time, but that's what we have to wait for as that's what the EU is waiting for.

The EU has requested we expand on our plans for 'alternative arrangements' with regard to the backstop.

We need to do so before the next HoC vote on 14th Feb. The EU see no point in shifting their position before than. And the UK will struggle to provide the info the EU want before then. So there is now some doubt as to whether the vote will go ahead as planned.

About a third of the Cabinet now believe that Brexit will have to be delayed due to legislation not being ready for exit date. However we don't have power over this and we might still exit without it.

There is no Brexit related business next week in the HoC to prevent pesky amendments. The recess has been cancelled but MPs have been told its OK to go on their ski holidays so it's just a PR stunt.

Meanwhile No Deal is in full effect as businesses trigger their exit strategy in the absence of certainty. No Deal is reality for many even if we do have a last minute deal...

We are all about to get poorer. As that's what we voted for.

In ‘forward purchasing’ news, I note that in my local Tesco formula milk and four tin packs of tuna are now kept with the spirits etc. And, trying to do an online Brexit shop for my Dad, a lot of tinned food is not in stock..
Still, I thought you might like to see my cat assisting with the order...

Missed a whole thread

Honestly I've almost had it with Brexit. I can just about be bothered to take my daily "wind up a brexiter" exercise on one of the other threads.

We are travelling to the UK to see family at the end of Feb/early March and I am hoping that the prospect of an imminent hard brexit won't be making itself felt. I don't think it will, but many things have happened in the last year that I thought wouldn't happen.

Looks like my cat @singswithitsfingers . Very helpful, I can see.

Talk1n sorry about your cousin :( so young ...

Also sorry for your loss TiP

Far too young...

PMK

Condolences, TiP.

I don't really think much that is either new or that will change anything is likely to happen until mid-February. This is a good time to step away from following every detail and take some time to recharge

That's what DH said too, bigly.

So sorry for your loss T1P I understand what you mean about the grief for the UK - I found myself crying about NI last week. It's all so terribly, terribly upsetting.

but anyone sitting complacently in any European country or the USA had better wake up and be aware of the danger of the far right obscenity that has arisen again.

This is my greatest fear, bigchoc. More than anything in the world I want the EU to hold the line on the backstop because I feel it's like a symbol. I'm frightened of what might happen on a local level if there's a hard border, obviously, and of how any violence might spread. But I feel even more that if we pick at parts of what makes the EU the EU, it will weaken it. If the individual countries start to disagree now, it will weaken it. If the four freedoms are spilt, it will weaken it.

Irish people go on and on and on about 'bailing out the banks'. It makes me sick listening to it. People went into crazy amounts of debt during the Celtic Tiger. The government did nothing to stop it, and they facilitated it. I haven't looked it up recently but a large proportion of T.D.s are landlords. The health service gets a very reasonable amount of money per capita but it's so tied into politics it's still shit. I do know one thing - it's got fuck all to do with the national debt, the banks or the EU. Because it was just as shit during the Celtic Tiger years. I just hear it now as far right propaganda.

I'm worried. I'm worried about fascism taking hold of the UK because of no deal. But I'm worried about fascism taking hold of the UK anyway, and it seems to have swung madly to the right even since the referendum. And it's so sad, because it's all caused by greed.

I'm worried about Russia. I'm worried about Poland and Hungary and Austria.

I just don't know where it's heading and where it's going to end. I look at my little boy and I wonder if he is going to be in a war. I think people have forgotten. I think we need the EU to hold the line.

I think we need the EU to hold the line

That is us.

We need to learn that no one else will sort this one out. It always comes down to us ourselves.

TP sorry for your loss

I am sorry about your cousin TiP. Deepest condolences to her children and to you too.

Agreed, mixedability. First they came.

Placing cats and dogs. Thank Red and others for an incredibly helpful analysis of the brewing shitstorm. Like many others I fear the rise of the far right, and wonder what the U.K. will be like 10 years from now. If, indeed, the U.K. still exists in its current form.

Ta1kinPeace

Very sorry for your loss. Hope her children and grandchildren are holding up.

loletta
Interesting idea from The Irish Times via James Forsyth on Twitter. Would make a lot of sense..
"Fascinating from the impeccably informed @denisstaunton , some in Brussels suggesting the way to resolve the backstop issue is to extend Article 50 by 2 years and negotiate the EU/U.K. trade deal in that time"

I don't think it would be a feasible proposition.

The EU repeatedly stated early in the negotiations that the Withdrawal Agreement must be in place before any trade agreement is negotiated. This is because until a WA is in place the UK is technically part of the EU. Also, and primarily, because until the terms of the future relationship are agreed (in the WA) the EU and the UK would not know what parameters they were operating within.

I think also that the ERG would only use the two years to further their own cause and the EU would end up 'negotiating' with their messenger girl as they are now, with other factions in Parliament all fighting with them and with each other (as now) and no possibility at all of any consensus emanating from Westminster so no agreement possible. Best for the EU to insist on the current schedule and on what is now on the table in the hope that it will give courage to the anti ERG factions and result in the defeat of No Deal.

Wrt Jacob Rees Mogg at the Tullyglass Hotel DUP fundraiser...
Wondering if he stood and sang The Sash.

Those people would gladly burn him in effigy in July. Everything he stands for is 'Rome Rule'.

“Mr Rees-Mogg made reference to John Major’s comments in the formative years of the peace process, when he said the UK had no selfish or strategic interest in NI.

“He distanced himself from those comments and made clear that he as a member of Conservative and Unionist Party did have a strategic interest in NI and that his party should as well.
www.newsletter.co.uk/news/dup-mp-jacob-rees-mogg-often-agrees-with-me-more-than-some-of-his-own-party-1-8794478

This will provoke immense anger.

I'm a lurker here but I find Mumsnet a great resource for keeping track of Brexit news. I don't live in the UK, and I mightn't be sufficiently up to speed on what's happening, but that's something I keep wondering:

Keeping in mind that the referendum was only ever advisory and the fact that the leave campaign broke the law (as I understand it) is there any chance that British people would rise up before the end of March and insist on article 50 being extended or revoked? Better to march in protest before Brexit than riot afterwards. Or could a huge petition have any impact? Another idea would be to stage an all out strike.

From my perspective it seems that a few amoral capitalists shouldn't be allowed to pull off such a treacherous act against the wishes of so many.

I've been lying awake worrying about a no deal scenario and wondering if there could be a popular uprising to halt this madness.

The advisory part is going to be resigned to the History books from what I can see - there seems no taste to go against "the will of the people" by the majority of the politicians, and the Yvette Cooper bill, which wasn't even directly requesting a People's Vote, didn't pass.

Unfortunately most remainers are women (which obvs comes with having kids and responsabilities) which makes us the less likely group to cause trouble. Add to that the early findings that remainers are more likely to have a degree and you have a group of working, mainly women, educated to a level that doesn't massively support striking.

It's the other side that are the worry, hence the apparent need to pander to every stomp of the foot. There you have swathes of unemployed, poor, men, easily stirred to anger - for all intents and purposes radicalised - with a dangerous mission to show that their vote was RIGHT. It's not a specific mission, but therein lies it's menace.

All reports of violence afterwards show the far right (Leavers) being the main problem. Remainers have stockpiled on the whole and plan to stay out of the way for the months after we leave, when all of the issues will come to the fore.

On top of this you have the middle group - from each side who actively stopped listening to any Brexit news years ago. Boring! They won't have prepared or thought about Brexit much and are likely to be caught up in this wondering why "someone" isn't "doing something".

As you can probably tell by the thread, we know the politicians haven't prepared businesses or got the foggiest clue on most of the needs of the country at this stage. Daily the papers are finding out another "problem" - school food shortages, rubbish collection won't happen and no money for checks just in Dover in the last two days for example.

It really feels that we are powerless to prevent it. If they are expecting a riot, they should have pandered to our needs all along and then had the other side do a big blow out. That would have happened months ago.

More costs for UK businesses - and businesses that want to sell into the UK. It would be commercially impractical and politically impossible for manufacturers to use EU sales to subsidise the costs of having to apply for additional marking, so that's a hit that's going to paid directly by the end consumer.

Why is my iPhone £40 more than the EU version ?
Because you had to pay for UKCA markings

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47096621

The government has drawn up plans to replace the CE safety symbol on products in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the BBC has learned.

Household items such as kettles, light bulbs and toys are stamped with the letters CE.

The mark belongs to the European Union, so if Britain leaves the EU without a deal, goods will have to be stamped with a new symbol - UKCA.

Some manufacturers are concerned that such a change will be costly.

Since 1993, the CE mark has shown consumers that an item meets EU legal requirements and has been tested.

The new logo drawn up by the UK government stands for UK Conformity Assessed (UKCA).

(contd)

Thank you for this thread

mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1PQ5W5?__twitter_impression=true
Small extension to Brexit timetable could be acceptable: Rees-Mogg

You mean now inevitable?

I'm so sorry, Talk1n

I know exactly what you mean about the grief. We have had a family crisis and I'm terribly worried about all those involved, but all this Brexit nonsense is also nagging away at me. The NHS did its thing and quietly saved three lives, and is putting them back together again. But I can't help but wonder if the same help will be there in the future... not if the likes of JRM has his way, I fear.

Or could a huge petition have any impact?

There have been several petitions to try to halt/mitigate the effects of Brexit or hold a people's vote. I signed a number of them.
The government has responded with the same statement after parliamentary debate: "The people of the United Kingdom gave a clear instruction to leave the
European Union. The Government respects that decision."

So I don't think petitions are going to have an effect.

You can go to petition.parliament.uk and search for 'brexit' to see these petitions. A few leave-type ones are in there too.

We've got a logo but no regulations as yet UKCA

"It provides flexibility for government should there be divergence of regulations to insist that manufacturers were committing to that UK regulatory practice in future," he said.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grassroots-tories-warn-may-that-brexit-delay-would-be-a-betrayal-2qshdv0p0?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1549043019
Grassroots Tories warn May that Brexit delay would be a betrayal

Sir Graham Brady has become the latest senior Tory politician to say that Brexit could be delayed.

Well this is convenient. It will be a betrayal for A50 to be delayed, but everyone from Rees-Mogg to Brady to Javid to Rudd all saying yes its OK and will probably be needed. Except we don't have that power to extend it. And everyone of these people voted against an extention last week.

Sorry DG - screen didn't refresh so X posted!