Westminstenders: Distract and divert. Just close your eyes.

[RedToothBrush]

This morning Jeremy Hunt declared that, 'With vision on both sides we can find a way through that has the support of Parliament and also works for the EU'

Of course this is 18th February 2019 and the UK has yet to demostrate they understand the problem, much less have the vision to solve it. And we leave the EU next month.

It needs to be stressed at this point: DON'T FORGET TO FOCUS ON WHAT REALLY MATTERS

Everything else is a tactic to make you close your eyes and miss what is really going on. Everything. Brexit looks increasingly like a hypnotist making their subject do ever increasing acts of ridiculousness on stage. Except I do not know if the public or the politicians are that poor sod. It is the magician who uses tricks of slight of hand to make you look the wrong way, whilst they makes all the big moves out of your vision.

There are so many stories that are coming out to try and make you miss what the government are failing to do. Stay focused. We can't ignore all these stories, but understand whether they are really important to the end game too.

A labour split, a march on the 23rd March, talk of a PV, the Brady amendment, the Malthouse Compromise, Cooper-Boles halting no deal?

No we need more than that.

The time for fantasies are gone. Its time to face reality and be pragmatic. The only thing that matters is the approaching cliff. Which we will go over not on the 29th March but in the next couple of weeks. We might not realise the ground disappearing beneath our feet at first. Our momentum as we go forward will carry for a short while before gravity kicks in.

But we can not defy the laws of physics and suddenly be able to fly because we develop magic superhuman powers of vision.

And no one will come to save us either.

Our national humilation will be total, if we don't acknowledge what is coming and stop.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3492426-Westministenders-Abbreviation
Brexit Abbreviation Thread

@Missbel I am so sorry about your and your DP's situation - how utterly heartbreaking. I've done a lot of work with farmers especially hill farmers and so they were the first to come to mind as being massive casualties of Brexit after the ref.

I was thinking only in terms of the loss of the enviro grants at that point - which often make the difference between surviving and not. it never crossed my mind we would be where we are now.

Also I have witnessed that fierce bond between farmers and their land and their animals, going back generations. It's not romantic sentiment, it's fact. And bloody relentless hard work.

However my local farmer/butcher is a Brexiteer (sheep mainly, some beef cattle plus rare breed pork and free range chicks bought in) and he actually said he would rather be poorer and out than under the 'cosh' of the EU. I cannot begin to understand it but he's retiring soon, has done better than most with his two businesses and not passing the farm on.

Hard Brexit is surely the end of Northern hill farming to be followed by massive green belt development and I weep at what is about to come. You and your DP have each other though. You'll get through together.

Does he have dogs and would you be able to take them in too?

Please know someone out there really cares.

Mine's on that list Red. They are trying to hack into Greenbelt to do it. When the local infrastructure: roads, schools, doctors, dentists etc is utterly ill equipped to deal with what we have now.
Our Labour MP is championing it. Even if he hadn't lost my vote over Corbyn, he loses it over this.
We don't have much green in our area. And he wants to sell it off when there is loads of unused brownfield.

Paul Brand @ paulbranditv
NEW: Statement from ERG says “Following a meeting with the PM, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker said, The Malthouse Compromise is alive and kicking. The Secretary of State for Exiting the EU can provide details. We look forward to further developments.”

They add ominously...
“We look forward to further precision about exactly what we will be asked to vote for.”

WTAF is going on with TM? She's leaving politics soon, does she really want her legacy to be driving the UK over a cliff into a no deal Brexit? I'm flabbergasted that - as a supposed Remainer - she's meandering towards that course of action.

How on earth do we get through to the bloody woman?

Anyone else struggling to find even a mention of Gove's speech on SKY or BBC? I wonder why that would be ?

This revised meme is doing the rounds on my friends' Facebook. The original hasn't stood the test of time

And Toyota and Vauxhall are hardly safe either

Spoke to leaver friend v. briefly and when I asked if she had seen the news she started by saying she "hadn't seen anything about Gove" then when I said he had admitted there would be food supply issues she said "I thought he said he would have some tariffs?" (so clearly had seen) then was "too busy and haven't got much to say" and might call me later. Denial. When will they get to the anger stage?

These threads are a small bubble of awareness in a sea of closed ears and eyes.

Couldn't agree more TIP. I went to the UK and just returned home to France. I couldn't believe how calm everyone seemed to be.
It was at that point I felt my sadness change to anger. It was at that point that I realised that if there's insufficient desire to change things from people in the country, then why should I be crying about it.

I am concerned for the poor who I believe will be worse off. But I have childhood friends who I know are poor and who voted out. They even told me that my opinion was not valid because I live in Europe. So, I hope that it'll be ok but don't think it will be.

I am relieved when I hear people ( Kitty and others) talking about standing up until the last moments. Well done you lot. And I remember that the poll tax got stopped at the very moment.

What's this about a Gove speech? I can't keep up

SparklySneakers If you use search on BBC and look at Gove you get this www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47291378 which is a very basic plodding explanation of what has been explained on here for months. Guardian has a few more bits of his actual speech here. Further down the thread is the full speech.

To me, the very fact it's not on the BBC front page (beaten by some complete trashy rubbish tbh) is a representation as to how far it has fallen for news. Guardian piece explained the consequences and highlighted his direct speech about supply chain problems. Mainstream media is definitely being backhanded to keep this calm IMO.

Another interesting thing to note is that he hasn't even mentioned our exporting and regulations required for WTO. That's just being ignored it seems?

Re;farmers (@Missbel - I hope that it does not come to that for your partner)
All around us pre referendum the framers all had signs up on their land bordering main roads - in fact any roads - saying "vote leave for farming" - the news is getting progressively worse for this sector, but no signs have appeared. To proud to say that have changed there mind? Pride won't help them keep their farms.....I just don't understand what they haven't started becoming more vocal?

Shamima Begum the girl who went off to be IS bride is to lose her British citizenship. I thought that you weren't allowed to take away citizenship unless a person had a dual citizenship? Or have I got that wrong?

They’re apparent claiming she is dual Bangladeshi citizenship. The family say not.

Assuming not - it’ll be overturned. However, the question I really have is “what is this announcement being used to distract us from?”

Contrary to what Mogg said on QT she does have dual by right of her parents. All propaganda to take our eyes off Brexit and reinforce "nasty immigrants" in the leavers eyes.

Twitter is suggesting she has Bangladeshi citizenship or is entitled to it through her parents.

There is a blog doing the rounds which suggests it might not be that simple though. If she is deported by another country here, we might have issues deporting her to Bangladesh. Or if she turns up here whilst Javid can get an order banning her entry again its not that simple.

To cap it off even if she legally is Bangladeshi that doesn't mean her newborn son is. He can't be left stateless as technically if she was born in the UK and was a citizen when he was born he would have rights of citizenship here, and as Joshua Rozenberg points out, no court would separate them at that age if legally challenged over citizenship issues and if they did return he would be subject to social services intervention.

She is being used as a political football to make an example of and for Javid's personal gain.

It sounds straightforward in principle but it looks like legally its still more difficult than the media is playing it to be.

Lizzie dearden @lizziedearden
New: Shamima Begum's lawyer tells me she only held British nationality and 'has never had a Bangladeshi passport' meaning she is stateless

The government was found to have acted unlawfully in two cases involving Islamists of Bangladeshi heritage last year

Previous case:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/BRITISH-CITIZENSHIP-REMOVAL-ISIS-TERRORISTS-EXTREMISTS-STATELESS-ILLEGAL-BLOCKED-COURT-BANGLADESH-A8645241.HTML
UK blocked from making alleged extremists stateless by secret court in ruling that will set precedent
Judge allows appeal by two alleged Islamists after government tried to strip their British citizenship

Oh and the other thing I saw was a comment that Wikipedia says Begum was Bangladeshi and they thought the home office might actually use that as a source of information...

Oh well that's cleared that up then.

barristerblogger.com/2019/02/17/can-the-home-secretary-prevent-shamina-begum-returning-to-the-uk/
Blog on the legality of stripping Begum of citizenship.

BTW, Begum's rights are technically protecting under the ECHR. If someone wanted to do some grandstanding to win support for repeal of the GRA and our membership of the ECHR then Begum would be a good place to start....

Where is she being held atm? Do we think that might have any bearing on how leavers view EU? Eg - "nasty EU country has shipped her over here and now we can't do anything! THIS is why we want to leave!"

The Begum thread on here is so ghastly that it has almost convinced me that Brexit is a good thing. It is hugely tempting to say that 90% of the people posting on that thread could really, really do with a good hard no-deal Brexit.

Ah, that's the angle then - I didn't see your post before I posted. Pesky human rights...

As I said to dh: the government will take away her citizenship, it will be challenged and they will lose - but it will still be a Win-Win for the government

Win because Javid has made himself look "tough" - and also because it distracts from the Brexit issues.

And win again because when the government loses (as it will), they can blame the nasty pesky European Human Rights Laws