Westminstenders: Waiting for the vote that never comes

[RedToothBrush]

March 12th (or earlier): Second vote on May deal.
March 13th: Vote on No Deal if WA fails to pass on the 12th
March 14th: Vote on an a50 extension.

The March 14th vote is the most important, though the others are still important and we have no idea how nuclear the ERG or the moderates will ultimately go in terms of blowing the Tory Party apart.

Even if May's Deal does pass we need an extension. We've known this a long time, from a British POV, but the EU have now explicitly said that they will need a technical extension to ratify the WA if we now approve it. We also need an extension if we decide to go for No Deal because we will have legal chaos as the HoC hasn't passed the necessary legislation for No Deal either. But this isn't the EU's problem...

With feelings in the EU becoming more bitter the idea of an extension might be more difficult to come by, if May hasn't passed the WA by the 29th March though.

The EU and May are therefore both aligned with a mutual interest to get the WA passed by 29th March for this reason. Which might mean the EU do play tough on granting us an extension (at least initially) if we formally ask for one on the 14th March in order to help persuade the HoC vote for May's deal before the deadline of the 29th March.

I think we should expect the WA to fail to pass on the 12th March. There just aren't the numbers for it. Then hardball politics from the EU commence on the 14th - it might well be a long extension or nothing. May will then try and do MV3 before the 29th March. If it passes, May's happy and the EU are happy. If it fails... well... I think the EU might give way to a shorter extension at that point, but very begrudgingly. And the idea will be for MV4 or the July cliff edge.

Until then we sit waiting forever for the sun to start going around the earth and for pigs to fall out of the sky.

I've entered a really weird 'don't give a fuck' zone this month emotionally. I was sooooo stressed last month - floods of tears out in the garden with the frustration and insanity of it all - but weirdly unemotional and disconnected this month.

I get that

The EU are very aware of the unwise humiliation in the Versailles Treaty - and the consequences of that.
So both with Brexit and - if it comes to that - Rejoin negotiations, they are very much trying to avoid punishment or deliberate humilation of the UK

However, the disgraceful behaviour of several Uk politicians, the insulting language used and the obvious malice of many,
is making them wary of granting a long extension, which the UK might use to disrupt the working of the EP / EU

I don't expect them to remove the optouts if we Brexit then request - and are allowed to - Rejoin,
because if they do accept us back, they want a fresh start, not to start fresh grievances.

"Perhaps as a society, we need to look at how, with 100s of stabbings of black youths, over a number of years, it took the stabbing & murder of a white girl guide and a white grammar school boy before this issue has finally hit the headlines?"

That's not true.
The headlines have been there, depressingly frequently over the years, and certainly they are not all black youths.
If, by "white grammar school boy", you mean Yousef Makki, he was originally from Lebanon: he won a scholarship to the independent school he attended.

Esther Webberr@estwebber*

Govt defeat: Peers vote 207-141 for Labour-led amendment to the Trade Bill
requiring ministers to take all steps to enable a post-Brexit customs union with the EU
......
Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

Latest - Lords defeat the Government, to enforce a customs union with the EU as part of any Brexit deal, by 207 v 141.

A massive new headache for No10.

Unclear whether PM will still have the votes to overturn the Trade Bill amendment in the Commons.

If the govt just accept this amendment now, Labour would presumably abstain on the WA ?

That's with the background of charges probably being brought against soldiers for Bloody Sunday

I think this is a difficult one - because who sent them in and what orders were they given? Although I think it's right that charges should be brought, I think that someone much more senior should also be held accountable.

Varadkar:
“The position as of today is we have no texts or draft texts to consider or get legal advice on.

I am not entirely sure what MPs are looking at in London.

We have no legal texts or draft legal texts to consider, propose amendments to, or seek legal advice on".

That's with the background of charges probably being brought against soldiers for Bloody Sunday
I wonder if this is the preamble for squashing the charges, to pacify Tory MPs and the DUP ?

I think it's just Karen Bradley not having a bloody clue about the recent past of NI - of course soldiers/police or security services would never commit any crimes.

If only there was a way of remedying one's ignorance, like reading a book or something. FFS.

peregrina There is no evidence that anyone told those soldiers to shoot people or to commit any criminal acts

They decided to do so themselves

I still can't get over her not knowing that people in NI vote in elections mostly on sectarian lines

Never mind NI SoS, or even an MP

Any educated person with a reasonable knowledge of recent Uk history should know this
Was she kept in a dark cellar until she was elected to Westminster ?

BigChoc - I don't think we know. At least one other poster thinks it was a deliberate decision to send in an inappropriate squad i.e. paratroopers for a peace keeping role, and thinks there is more.

I really don't know, but I remember it happening well at the time and I think it's pretty disgraceful that it's taking this long to get to the bottom of what happened.

It was unwise to send in troops without specific training for NI crowd control

• that was one of the findings right after Bloody Sunday that means troops ever since always get specific training before an NI tour

However, it doesn't rise to the level of criminal culpability
Those soldiers - like any others in the British armed forces - knew perfectly well it was illegal to deliberately shoot unarmed demonstrators

@red AFter the HoL voted 207-141 for Labour-led amendment to the Trade Bill
requiring ministers to take all steps to enable a post-Brexit customs union with the EU

Is this a game-changer -if the PM hasn't the HoC votes to reverse it ?

It means during transition, that the govt would have to negotiate a permanent CU, instead of the kind of deal the ERG want.
It would rule out any US deal, or any other race-to-the-bottom deal that the EU don't like

@red Could it also mean, if not reversed in the HoC, that Labour would abstain / support the WA ?

peregrina The question of culpability of higher ups would be if they actually planned or gave orders to shoot people.
That may indeed have happened, in which case they would be guilty too.

I have sometimes wondered if the decades of delays were to wait until the senior officers - who might have planned something - had died out.

But that doesn't in the slightest excuse the soldiers who did the actual shooting:
it didn't work at Nuremburg or at any more recent war crime trial at the ICC

I agree with you there BigChoc obeying orders is not a defence when you know it's a criminal act. As for the decades of delays, I expect to be long dead myself before we find out whether anyone higher up was involved.

I always considered myself reasonably well informed but have begun to realise that I didn't know the half of it. Still, I do know about the GFA and I know that NI is part of the UK, and did study history so know about Cromwell, William and the Famine, which unfortunately some of our Leaver friends and politicians seem unaware of. (And don't care either, oh unless it's to move their money to Dublin, which they realise is part of a separate state.)

Karen Bradley said "the fewer than 10% [of killings during the Troubles] that were at the hands of the military & police were not crimes, they were people acting under orders and fulfilling their duties in a dignified & appropriate way."

twitter.com/dmc_fadden/status/1103283268017942528?s=19

She should resign. These are the deaths that she considers "dignified and appropriate":

twitter.com/ClaireAllan/status/1103296345480282113?s=19

"they need us more than we need them".

This is so familiar. I am surrounded by people who say it. A really depressingly mind numbing phrase.

What makes one person so different from their entire birth family?

Apologies if this has already been posted but this seems to sum everything up very clearly.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/06/brexit-kyle-wilson-amendment

Ministers don't resign because they're bad at the job anymore though, do they? All of Grayling's outrageous disasters - massively expensive - were excused by a Tory minister on Question Time as: "No-one would dare to do their job if they were sacked over the first little mistake".

If Bradley really said that - in the HoC ! - then she should have been sacked on the spot

She is dangerous and unfit to be in any govt post, let alone NI

Steven Swinfordd@Steven*_Swinford

Exclusive:

Labour whistleblower says Corbyn allies intervened in anti-Semitism cases as 'matter of routine'

Former official said dealing with sensitive complaints was 'like stepping on an an electric rail'

Labour says claims are 'malicious lies'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/03/05/jeremy-corbyns-allies-intervened-anti-semitism-cases/

'Cases were routinely discussed by the leader’s office

'It was like stepping on an electrified rail whenever we suspended someone known to Jeremy Corbyn. Loto [the leader’s office] engaged in disciplinary cases as a matter of routine'