Westminstenders: It's oh so quiet...

[RedToothBrush]

It's oh so quiet // It's oh so still // You're all alone // And so peaceful until

You ring the news // Bim bam // You shout and you yell // Hi ho ho // You broke the spell // Gee, this is swell you almost have a fit // Brexit is fab and I got hit // There's no mistake get on with it

'Til it's over and then // It's nice and quiet //
Shh shh // But soon again // Shh shh // Uh oh let's start a big riot

You blow a fuse // Zing boom // The devil cuts loose // Zing boom // What's the use
Wow bam // Of leaving the EU

It's gone quiet.

May was supposed to go on a tour of the EU to get concessions. She hasn't.

Instead we are currently stuck in an internal never ending debate about Alternative Arrangements (which is being abbreved too A. A. by less convinced souls) and how Germany got all the money from Marshall Aid (it didn't) and how navy ships can suddenly sprout front opening hulls to become roll on roll off ferries to emulate the spirit of Dunkirk. One of our greatest ever military defeats, which merely had good PR.

The idea that there is going to be any shift in position between now and 14th Feb seems unlikely. It suits the EU and it suits the ERG to be blunt about it. It does not suit the UK national interest though.

Instead our livihoods and futures are slowly drip, drip, dripping away. Invisible to those loved up on the idea of Leaving. But like a newly wed, how long does that feeling last? 42% of British marriages end in divorce after all. When do people fall out of love with Brexit?

The revelation of the need for the WAIB is scary too. The WAIB is the Withdrawal Agreement Implementation Bill. You can read more about it here:
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1091734003265224708.html
Well I say you can read about it, but from the thread you can see that the WAIB hasn't been published yet. And for us to Brexit without a legal and constitutional nightmare parliament needs to pass both the WA And the WAIB. And if you thought it was difficult to get the WA through just wait until you clap eyes on the WAIB details.

With this in mind there are noises from the ERG about an A50 extension. Y'know the one we can't have unless the EU think it's it their interests too.

mlexmarketinsight.com/insights-center/editors-picks/brexit/europe/the-uk-rips-out-its-eu-law-drip,-only-to-hook-up-to-another
More on the WAIB.

Of course there is a more sinister explanation: May does indeed intend to no deal and or use civil contingency law to pass the WAIB in whatever form she sees fit without parliamentary scrutiny.

Tick, tick, tick.

A friend told me today not to worry about brexit as "we survived before and we'll survive again". I didn't say much. My history lessons were rather grimmer in reminding me, that the ones who didn't survive don't get to be so optimistic.

Thank you @RedToothBrush .
Nice op, by the way.

Hi there.

Thanks for the new thread!

As usual.... I can only wonder when did the "They need us more than them", "Easiest trade deal in history" etc. become "we can survive this"?

sigh

Thanks again RTB.

Awful thought about May pushing through the WAIB without scrutiny. I suppose if you've got thumping great Statutory Instruments just lying around, you might as well use them. My dreadometer is back off the scale again.

PMk

Meanwhile, arriving on time, is news that all those interconnected data feeds ... yup - no one's started thinking about them.

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/04/whitehall_data_flows_brexit/

Senior government officials have reportedly been warned that public bodies are not prepared for the implications on crucial data transfers if the UK leaves the European Union without a deal.

According to The Times, three-quarters of 63 public bodies surveyed between October and December said they rely on data stored or processed in the European Union.

The problem is that, if the UK leaves the bloc without a Withdrawal Agreement in place, transfers from the EU to the UK would have to cease, or carry on, but under new terms.

(contd)

It's the "new terms" bit that is amusing, as it presupposes the bodies in the EU have the time and resources to enter into incredibly delicate negotiations just because the UK thinks they should. Another one for the "nasty shock" column that Nadine Dorries started with What ?! We won't have any MEPs after Brexit, and Raab added What ?! Britain is an island ? to.

All I do is 🐟 Mat 🤴

As a place mark, and a comment on DGR's post, maybe take the scene from 'Airplane' where the guy pulls the plug out for the runway lights, but switch off the EU/UK data feed for say an hour, and see what happens.

At my work someone at the energy provider, (EDF I think it was) did just that. Cue 1000 computers going down. Some had back up power supplies, most did not. The idiot responsible got the sack, but weeks worth of work was lost.

Pmk

Is May waiting for the Famous Five (Nicky, Stevie, Owen, Damian and their adoring dog Marcus) to magic up some special border arrangements before she trots off to the EU? Five Cobble Together A Dog's Breakfast?

So we currently live under a dictatorship? Just wondering...

As a place mark, and a comment on DGR's post, maybe take the scene from 'Airplane' where the guy pulls the plug out for the runway lights, but switch off the EU/UK data feed for say an hour, and see what happens.

If you read the comments on that link, you'll see reports of at least one outfit that tried.

The real problem will be where firms think they have isolated the problem feeds by switching suppliers or asking suppliers for a guarantee that the feeds are post-Brexit compliant, only to discover (as at least on case I know of) that the substitute feed also relied on EU data - despite claiming not to. And that won't be known until B-Day.

I've worked in software long enough to know damn well that an awful lot of "fixes" for the problem will have been to simply hide the error messages and carry on. Possibly with some gentle "tweaking" of database constraints to get systems working.

When it comes to data, the UK is going to end up signing whatever the EU asks of it for the simple reasons that (1) it hasn't done a stroke of work into devising it's own solution and (2 - more worryingly) there's zero trust in the UKs adherence to anything in the absence of a legal agreement.

Bear in mind the direction of travel regarding personal data has been going in opposite directions between the EU and UK anyway. The EU has been very fixated on privacy concerns (and in fact is squaring up to the US over this as I type). Meantime the UK attitude has been laissez-faire at best, and downright invasive at worst. The stacked-up court cases against the Home Office being testament to that.

But hey, I'm far more worried about au pairs after Brexit (I really hope that doesn't sound as creepy as it might ... am I as bad as David Mitchell ). Although if you wanted to start a subtly trolling thread, that would probably be a good one . Maybe I should NC and AIBU about a possible avocado famine ?

Thank you RTB. The things Britain thinks it can and can't cope with on the last thread really made me laugh. (Snow, drones,Greggs etc.)

Apart from that I'm still pretty despondent. Some Brexiteers have a son in my DDs class - I learned yesterday that the child (age 10) has a pic of Farage as his screen saver.

The time has come, the Cabinet said,
To talk of many things:
Of AA chats* * - and Brenda Evacs plus Nissan huts,

Of plaices, mats ** — and kings

Thank you RTB for another helpful post.There was a good article by Caitlin Moran in Satuday's Times which comprehensively debunked the "Blitz spirit" argument

At my work someone at the energy provider, (EDF I think it was) did just that. Cue 1000 computers going down. Some had back up power supplies, most did not. The idiot responsible got the sack, but weeks worth of work was lost.

When I managed a public facing website, our contract with the hosting company - UKFAST - clearly specified the architecture with everything duplicated across identical servers, and a clustered SQL BD server with a shadow copy.

Got into work one morning, and wondered why certain jobs hadn't run, and we'd had no sales over the Sunday. A few seconds looking awt emails and logs, and it emerged that both web servers had gone down.

Turned out there had been a power outage at UKFAST and some *** had plugged both servers into the same power rail. Meaning their UPS was useless as far as we were concerned.

It got as far as a letter before action, but then they realised that although we were a small company (10 employees) we were owned by a big company, and my boss could have put "going to court" on his cv as a hobby.

Now multiply snafus like that up and down the country ....

There was a good article by Caitlin Moran in Satuday's Times which comprehensively debunked the "Blitz spirit" argument

As "Mad" Frankie Fraser said ... The blitz was a golden time for criminals ...

Even now, we have no idea how many murders were concealed.

As I walked home from school today I wondered if it’s the lull before the storm...

PMK
Thanks red

The assumption that hitherto nasty people will suddenly become kind, generous and community minded in a crisis is odd. There will always be a mix of attributes in any one human, let alone a group of them.

Perhaps we ought to deliver 600 odd copies of lord of the flies to the HoC as required reading.

some people are going to do very nicely out of a chaotic Brexit.

Follow the money....

As I walked home from school today I wondered if it’s the lull before the storm

Last 3 days (Midlands) have been brilliantly sunny (currently 9C) - blue skys, light winds. Chilly but gorgeous. We had a touch of snow which went very quickly last week, and some frosts.

But given we're out of January (it's still light ) it's hard not to feel a little ... springy.

Saw a patch of Daffodils coming up in Harborne yesterday

PMK

Eerily quiet, definitely the calm before the storm.

Tick tock, tick tock 🕰

Same here dg

Crocuses and daffs and snowdrops out here

Arg! I've NC since I last posted, but I read this comment on the BBC news story and it made me rage-y. See, the whole problem should be sorted by Ireland moving out the EU customs arrangement. Easy!

"Alternatively the EU 'could' leave the border alone, and have a "Celtic Sea border" between Ireland & the rest of the EU.
Goods would be subject to checks only when going to the rest of the EU, as non-Schengen EU citizens already are..."

So depressing after returning to thinking about Brexit after a weekend watching rugby. Can we not just put a referee from that sport (ideally Nigel Owens) in charge of Brexit? Pretty sure he'd get MPs to get their act together, and he's not scared of giant rugby players so he'd probs wipe the floor with dickhead ERG folk.