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

Wrt Shamina Begum at the end of the day it's one person who has been drawn to something very evil. I don't know what should happen to her exactly, but do think some serious justice leading to punishment is probably in order. I suspect evidence is hard to nail down though.

But there are 66 million people in the (F)UK(D). Why does the population get so very worked up over 1 potentially distributed or evil person or 5 desperate people in a boat. In any chunk of 1 million people there will be some desperate people and some crackpots. This will always happen. It's nothing to do with the EU, or non EU countries or former colonies. It happens in any section of population. You get criminals and weirdos but that has to be seen in context.

Things like this shouldn't inform or influence (or even be a factor in ) people's overall political views or international trade decisions.

I fear this government is deliberately pandering to the mob.

But it's interesting which mob they pander to isn't it? What about the other ignored mob?

That recycled petition response letter is so shit. It has the tone of an unkind malevolent parent refusing to let a child change its mind over some rash declaration the child made..
How long before the petition system is changed?

17.4 million people voted to leave the European Union.

What about the 16 million who didn’t? How long since we been offered even one placatory word?

implement the will expressed by the electorate

Except the will of the electorate has now clearly changed. Every poll is showing at least 53% in favour of retention of membership.

Theresa May has dropped or changed many other commitments in the past eg there was an absolute manifesto commitment pledging to vote again on repealing the fox hunting ban. She was personally in favour of bringing it back ...

Then on she changed her mind pretty sharpish telling the Andrew Marr Show there was a clear message against it from the public.

So why stick to the 2016 result in this dictatorial way. There are plenty of pegs to hang a volte face on.

Why is there no listening to the (gradually better informed) public opinion now?

(I'd like some one to panda 🐼 or even pander to my mob for once. Sigh.)

I personally think SB is possibly sociopathic or similar. I don’t particularly want her back.

BUT this is FUKD and our ‘USP’ so to speak is our respect for law and order. This government has repeatedly trampled over the law and repeatedly must be brought to heel by the courts. Which they hate, so they’ve decimated the justice systems funding.

We should clear up our own mess, and SB is our mess. We should also be saving the baby, who is entitled under law to British citizenship (and possibly no other). The latter being the most important, as otherwise you simply leave a next generation jihadi in a refugee camp, with his mother dropping poison in his ear. If we let that happen it’s just 18 years or so potentially until the next atrocity.

I’d be very interested to know the level of support the Tiggers are getting. There was an interesting discussion on the radio, I can’t remember if it was before or after their actual announcement, where it was said that at one point the SDP, when formed, were polling on occasion over 50%.
But it was really the Falklands war that depolarised the electorate.

My understanding was Begum was a bright student. Its a difficult problem. On the one hand we have an underage female groomed along with 3 others. Then off they go to IS. Now one wants to come back with a child. No word on the other girls. Yes, its all political, yes the reporting was awful, she is not going to say anything bad about IS when stuck in a camp probably full of IS fighters. But what to do? Is she a danger to our society? Could her child be radicalised too? Why was she radicalised is the most important question that people should be focusing on. Personally she should not be stripped of her British citizenship. She should come home with her child BUT she should face an investigation to make sure she did not commit crimes. Then she should be supported to reverse her ' brainwashing' and find the real reason why she was groomed and hopefully the culprits caught and dealt with who did it. The family, too should also undergo a form of investigation to be sure they had nothing to do with the radicalization of their child. So many of our young are being radicalised why? That is what bothers me the most.

Another resignation Jill someone or other.

She's on radio now and not saying anything different other than she don't like JC and can't support him and antisemitic party blah, blah, blah. Also said she couldn't talk on doorsteps supporting JC. Then go for a bi election then instead if sitting in th HiC under false pretensions! Jo Ryan her name never heard of her.

Sorry about typos.

One of my DC's friends joined ISIS. It was a total shock. The boy was 17 at the time DC was terribly upset and in denial as he couldn't believe he would have done it.

Had to stop DC posting denials on social media as it was clearly true he had joined as the statement was from his distraught family and the police......And I didn't want DC on a watch list for a stupid denial of the truth

As far as I was concerned he was a child who had thrown his life probably literally away on a social media manipulated fantasy. He was 17 and knew nothing of the world really. SB was 15 I can not hold her to higher standards. She should be allowed home and due process should commence.

One thing I do ask is who will pay to bring her back? Will they bring her back, she is a British citizen after all?

She is in a war zone that she entered voluntarily as a child but is now an adult.
The UK has no duty to bring her back. Has to be under her own valition maybe with the help of the NGOs out there if they are willing or able. The UK doesn't have to pay for repatriation.

I’m curious as to why she’s chosen now to want to come back. Why not during her second pregnancy? Why not at the beginning of her third pregnancy? (unless it’s taken her several months to be in a position to ask). I don’t feel particularly sorry for her - but she has been manipulated in the past, and I suspect she’s being manipulated again. The whole situation strikes me as odd.

Nicholas Watt @ nicholaswatt
I reported last night on Newsnight: strong rumours that Sarah Woolaston, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen would defect to the Independent Group this morning. Looking like it may happen shortly before PMQs

@Anna_Soubry @sarahwollaston @heidiallen75 @BBCNewsnight @TheIndGroup

Lucy I imagine she wouldn't have been in a position to come back before her husband was kidnapped. Also I believe the journalist who first interviewed her encountered her by chance

Sorry not kidnapped captured. I'm just awake

On the crap recycled Revoke petition response (Dexeu has an exceptonally high staff turnover so whoever sent it was probably new to the job) - Dexeu says “We have spoken, won’t debate”, Petitions Committee rules say over 100k signatures gets debated - who wins? Who decides?

And thanks RTB for your constant hard work and updates.

Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt
A source in The Independent Group told me last night of possible defection of the three Tories: I can neither confirm nor deny. But tomorrow [Wednesday] will be a busy day

Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt
Tory whips had assumed Anna Soubry would jump ship when new group was established on Monday. Suspicions grew that afternoon when she failed to vote in three Commons votes even though she was neither slipped nor paired. Tory whips saying the three have gone ‘very very silent’

The defection of three Tory MPs would be symbolically far more significant than defection of eight Labour MPs. They would be crossing the floor of the Commons to sit on opposition benches

Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt
The defection of three Tories would make the numbers even tighter in parliament for Theresa May. With the DUP she would have the support of 324 MPs. You need 322 to command a majority, counting out the speaker and seven Sinn Fein MPs

Until we get Tories leaving the labour lot don't really mean or achieve much except provide a nice destraction from brexit for the papers.

Interesting that 32% of MPs are women.
But 50% of TIG MPs are now women.
And if those 3 Tories join today, 64% of TIG MPs will be women.
Small sample I know.
But just saying...

pp asked why anyone would vote Tory

One reason is because they are perceived as being tough on terrorism, while the left looks to excuse it;

the indiscriminate compassion of one section of the left that will excuse any crime if the perpetrators are young with a good sob story.
On MN, especially if they are young, female and brandishing a baby.

As a poster child for the compassion of the left, she is a terrible choice,
who will push a great many wavering voters into the arms of the Tories unless the left get their heads out of their compassionate arses and see how most of the population view her:
as being on the same sort of level as Myra Hindley

Why does anyone commit horrific crimes ? Become serial rapists, paedophiles, murderers, shoot an MP ?
Probably many of them were groomed or had dreadful childhoods, but we still stick them in prison

She ran off to join a murderous cult that are Islamic Nazis.
They committed genocide against Christian minorities.
They enslaved them.
They committed mass rape of women and girls younger than Begum

She gloried in their crimes, the beheadings, the burning alive, the slavery

I would compare her to a teenager in the 1940s who was attracted to Nazis atrocities and ran off to join those running death camps
Now she still thinks the gas chambers were great and Hitler is really cool
but she has a baybeeee so it's "poor little me"

The UK hanged traitors after WW2, who supported Nazis, but who didn't actually turn on the gas themselves or even visit any death camps.

Yes, she is only one person, but she chose to support an organisation and regime that committed genocide against minorities, that brought in slavery, mass rape, the most horrific crimes against humanity

I hope she faces the full force of the law and is sentenced to a very long prison term.
If there is a legal loophole to keep her out of the UK, I would welcome it, rather than have a poisonous snake that security services will have to watch 24/7 if she isn't in prison.
Terrorists frequently evade them, because it's an impossible task

If she then participates in a terrorist atrocity in the UK, we can just imagine the backlash that ordinary Muslims will face,
which would indeed create more terrorists.

She will have very little useful intel, unless she actually was a much more active participant than she claims.
There is no benefit to having her back, but she's our scum, so we probably will have to.
However, I won't be participating in the compassion fest for this evil bitch

{ore him; it's not our business and it is bitterly resented as Western imperialism
Also, it often leads to chaos, mass murder, refugees and a vacuum in which groups like IS thrive}
Removal (killing) of Ghaddaffi is arguably one of the reasons that Europe had so many 'immigrants/refugees' appearing 5 or 6 years ago. Although unpleasant he kept control of the region.

Look up 'Lords Resistance Army' based in Northern Uganda and adjacent countries. They recruit boys of 10 and older, give them an AK 47, knives and drugs and send them off to kill family members etc.
we worry about our children on the bus to school at that age. A different planet really, yet only a 10 hour plane journey away.

Ian Dunt @iandunt
David Anderson makes an absolutely killer point. If he went to fight for Isis, this could not happen. But because Shamima Begum has Bangladeshi parents, it has. This creates two classes of Brits.

She was born in the UK. She has never held another passport. She has foreign parents. I am in exactly the same category. And so, for that matter is Sajid Javid.

I suppose he gives not a fuck, on the basis that the only incentive behind his judgements, from this to the refugee 'crisis' nonsense, is his own professional ambition.

But it seems to me completely fucking abysmal.

BTW I've seen talk of how it's also unlawful to strip Begum of her British citizenship because it also strips her of her EU citizenship...

Twatty the journalist who interviewed her did so by chance

That’s the bit I find hard to believe.