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.

FishesaPlenty I not the one glossing over it the government have acted on it not me, advisory or not

Hesta54
No you cannot now the people have voted, what sort of democratic country are we if we don’t act like one
So votes are final?
We cannot revisit them?
But the HoC gets to keep voting?
And should General elections be cancelled?
What about the council elections in may ?

what sort of democratic country are we if we don’t act like one

Well quite. Ignoring illegalities in referendums certainly isn't respecting democracy. Politicians trying to stand in the way of parliamentary sovereignty isn't very democratic either. Government being found guilty of contempt of parliament?

There hasn't been much in the way of shining examples of democracy in the last two years. The Leave brigade aren't fans.

Hesta54 In my honest opinion, the vote should have never gone to the public without some rules attached, min turnout, min 60% to vote to leave

Had it been a binding referendum then it would probably have had extra rules attached. Amendments seeking for further rules other than a simple majority were voted down based on assurances that the referendum was only advisory.

jasjas1973 It’s a sad fact of life jobs come and go, a recession comes ever decade, in or out of the EU,
My cousin list his job in fords Southampton when the transit factor moved to another country ( with a lovely grant from the EU)

Hazards completely agree.

From where we are, now, I see no way to get to CU + SM - largely for the reasons Red has outlined.

There is still too much incompetence and mendacity. And delusion. And lack of responsibility.

TalkinPeece Oh come on, we all know we can vote again at the next GE etc, when the gov have had their time, how can we vote again on something that hasn’t taken place yet, what next vote again on the GE because it’s not the result you wanted ?

As it happens, No Deal/Brexit will help to achieve one of my personal objectives more quickly - that of Scottish Independence

But I still don't want it to happen because of the negative impact on the overall UK economy and the poorest and most vulnerable in particular

I'm not that selfish and self-centred.

MPs are supposed to be representatives, not delegates, and as such are supposed to represent the best interests of all their constituents. Not just those that voted for them. Not just 52% of 70% of the electorate . They should also consider those that came on to the register since 2016 and not those that died since the referendum vote . They should think of the children - our future - as well as those on the voting register.

and don't get me started on those that will personally profit from Brexit

Bubastes Who is ignoring them ? There are set procedures that govern that, Dishonest Mp’s who’d have thought it

There was some frothing elsewhere on this site about the referendum not being legally binding, but it was "politically" binding.

It's this kind of playing fast and loose with language which allows fascism and totalitarianism to set in. We're seeing it everywhere, where people acquitted from court aren't "innocent". We've had the Home Office illegally (and continually) breaking the law holding onto DNA samples from people who were never taken to court because official Home Office policy is that people who aren't guilty simply haven't been caught yet.

We saw if with the vomit-inducing description of Gibraltar as "part of the UK family" - which means fuck all in law, but allows the bully boys to patrol the streets.

FishesaPlenty That’s not the people who voted leave fault, you need to look at Parliament and their reasons for doing it that way

But Hesta, you said we have to carry out the referendum result now, to see/show how good, bad, indifferent leaving will be, it’s what the public voted for - that's not true, we don't have to.

The referendum was advisory, that isn't nonsense. Government or Parliament could still choose not to leave the EU if they wished, even at this late hour, because the referendum was only advisory.

Cameron's government was politically bound to follow the referendum decision. May's government is politically bound to carry out their manifesto commitment but nobody's legally bound to carry on with Brexit.

Bubastes Who is ignoring them ?

Er, the government.

Personally I'm reading the Tusk tweet (as it could become known in history books) as a declaration or signal the EUs quietly decided "no deal it is then.". Can't help but feel we're now in the equivalent position of rounding the dark side of the moon.

Strap in, looks like we could be in for a bumpy ride ....

See you all on the other side, hopefully

Hesta You have two quite different conversations going on here, you know:

1. A strangely active, t'the referendum must be enacted', 'democracy', 'will of the people' thing

1. A bizarrely fatalistic wimble, the gist of which is that people have no power, the gods blow us where they must. Fate bestows (jobs, prosperity, governments ... presumably the clothes one wears in the morning) and Fate rescinds (jobs, etc, ... resumably helps one get undressed of an evening).

Frankly, I don't understand you.

As I said: Own It.

Fate didn't vote Leave. You did.

In 65 years, you must have noticed some indication of free will?

Seriously, people are going to turn on each other - like rats in a cage - as the economy tanks.

You need to get cracking with your post-Victory narrative - because, I'm telling you, the whole, 'It was just Fate ... I just was wafted into the polling booth, and Fate just wafted all the money way,' while somewhat comedic, isn't going to cut it.

You have to look at what CAN happen from now onwards.
The WA is a relatively smooth path to departing. Within the 'rules' the UK can depart as quickly or slowly as it wishes. EU negotiators and UK negotiators put their fingers in the air and suggested a timescale of a good couple of years to actually implement departing. Within a month or two of signing the WA, businesses could get a better picture of where things are going and can act accordingly.
The alternative is the 'crash out'. It cannot happen immediately, although many things WILL but it will be chaotic as there is no plan. To disentangle all the treaties etc WILL take a year, even though it could be expressed as immediate. The resulting mess will be catastrophic, as businesses ship out big time, legislation will cease from time to time giving 'random' failures of control as the effects become apparent. A bit like taking 50 'random' bolts out of your car, things will appear to work until you try steering or braking. One wheel may come off, which is not catastrophic but you lose control etc.
At the moment therte is no overall majority or sense of direction, it will take months to get even half a plan together. The UK has 50 days.

There should be a political stance for remain for the same reason there has been a political stance of leave for the last forty years.
A democratic country should aim to have all of its major mainstream views represented in the political process.
A narrow majority for any political vote shouldn't be expected to ensure the other side of the arguments vanishes.
The Scottish nationalists haven't stopped speaking since the last referendum and I wouldn't expect them to.
I also wouldn't expect any MP to vote against their conscience or in a way they thought would damage the country.
The politicians who promoted leaving and the part of the population who voted for this are responsible for this mess no one else.

thecatfromjapan What’s there not to understand,
We rightly or wrongly had the referendum, which we should now carry out the result,
It’s now up to Parliament ( not me ) how and if we leave, I can do no more

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/06/brexit_printing_number_crunching/

theregister.co.uk
Hey, UK.gov: If you truly spunked £45k on 1,300 Brexit deal print-outs, you're absolute mugs
6 Feb 2019 at 13:26
4-5 minutes

The UK government spent £45,637 printing copies of the 600-page Withdrawal Agreement it now has to renegotiate – but did our political masters get their money's worth? Trust El Reg's readers to do the maths.

In response to a Freedom of Information request from the Beeb, the government said it had ordered 1,300 copies of the document, sending out 1,100 to MPs and peers. Others reportedly remain uncollected in a Parliamentary office.

Although many might wonder what the point of printing out so many hard copies was, the burning question for IT geeks is, apparently, whether the government got a good deal on doing so.

We popped it into the Reg online standards convertor, but found it was small fry – equalling just 0.0005 Pogbas and not even coming close to a DUP or an NHS budget.

Thankfully, reader Matthew Shipp was on hand with some fairly sophisticated back-of-the-envelope maths.

First, he chose the printer: a Ricoh MP C5504. "I've no idea if this is a reliable model, but it has B&W capacity at low cost," he said, noting it works at a rate of 60 pages per minute and has a black-and-white toner capacity of 18,000 pages.

The cost of hiring this for a month is £100, and – assuming that price doesn't include toner – the toner cost is £80.75. Shipp estimated paper costs at £3.25 per 500 pages, and binding of £4 a pack.

Next up is the challenge: the government needs 1,300 packs at 600 pages each in a timescale of 168 hours (assuming the printing needed to be done inside a week).

"Running 24/7, we would need 77.4 printers," mused Shipp. But, as all good techies know, it's important to build in some redundancy, so he opted for 90.

"With 90 printers we can assume one cartridge per printer. Again we could say you only need 78 cartridges, but let's be generous here as well, in case the pages are using more ink than we thought," he said.

Printer hire cost: (£100 * 90) / 4 = £2,250 (Divided it by 4 as it's a one-week run)

Cartridge Cost: (90 £80.75) /2 = £3,634 (Halved, as with 90 cartridges we are only using half a cartridge per printer for this run)

Paper Cost: (1300 600) / 500 £3.25 = £5,070

Binding Cost: 1300 * £4 = £5,200

Total: £16,154

But the Beeb says the government spent £45,637 on printing – so what happened to the rest of the cash?

Staff, of course. People will be needed to run the batch and be on hand to keep things ticking over. Shipp decided to go for a minimum wage staffer, on the basis that watching printers can't be too skilled a job.

Min Wage Apprentice: £3.70

Min Wage U18: £4.20

Min Wage 18-20: £5.90

Min Wage 21-24: £7.38

Min Wage 25+: £7.83

Shipp assumed that the project needed 24/7 shifts and all of the staff were "standard overworked employees... doing all seven days in a row on eight-hour shifts", which would be three staffers per 168-hour shift.

He calculated that to mean, with the £29,483 it has to play with, Whitehall could hire 142 apprentices, 125 under-18 workers, 89 people aged between 18 and 20, some 71 between 21 and 24, or 67 over 25.

"Clearly, those numbers are unreasonable, so let's assume that one person can monitor 10 printers," our maths enthusiast continued. "That means we need 18 workers in three shifts, equating to 27 workers – let's be generous and round that up to 30."

So, Shipp concluded, even at the highest cost person, there is still a £16,328 gap before we reach the government's actual spend.

Our man suggests that the spare cash might have gone on expenses, while here at Vulture Central we reckon there needs to be some consultancy costs or outsourcing factored in – but we're sure the rest of you will wade in below. ®

That’s not the people who voted leave fault, you need to look at Parliament and their reasons for doing it that way

I didn't say anything about it being leave voters' fault. It's nobody's 'fault' at all - it's just a fact that the referendum was advisory only. The only 'fault' is with a government that's too weak to put the country's interests above their own.

The Government are no more legally bound to go through with Brexit than they are to carry out any of their other ignored manifesto commitments.

1tisILeClerc Fail to prepare, prepare to fail as I said before it’s Parliament that is letting the country down

FishesaPlenty So if it’s not right for the country, why are they carrying on with it ?

Hesta, I think you'll find that every competent religious and philosophical system will make short shrift of such lazy-minded self-exoneration.

It doesn't wash with me. And it won't wash with real people, out in the real world, either.

"So if it’s not right for the country, why are they carrying on with it ?"

Because they are shit. Because they have backed themselves into a corner. Either of those will explain No Deal.

The people who voted leave are responsible for us leaving, they made that choice. They cannot shift that responsibility onto others.

There was no good way of leaving, only less bad ways. This was obvious before the vote ever took place. Therefore leave voters are responsible for the UK heading into a less good place than it is currently in.