Westministenders: The DisUnited Kingdom of Remaina

[RedToothBrush]

Todays News Round Up (so far):

1. MV2.5 failed by 58 votes.
2. Labour Rebels were not tempted by May's promises of consultation with parliament over the next phase. This is because this is not a binding promise and with a possible change of leader this is even more lacking in substance
3. More ERG than expected switched to supporting the WA. This included leadership hopefuls Johnson and Raab. But there were still 28 hold outs plus 6 Tory Remain Rebels.
4. Macron said that the EU would be the ones to decide the timetable for no deal if we failed to pass the WA or ask for an extension by 12th April. Thus 12th April is NOT necessarily the cliff edge we fear, though it still is no deal. (Its just a possible time delay). As far as a lengthy extension goes he would want not just EP election participation but also more in the way of a concrete way forward than we currently have though.
5. The EUCO are meeting on the April 10th. Thus we have until then to work something out. Thats quite the ask.
6. A series of mini deals in the event of No Deal is something the EU are firmly ruling out. And yet the myth that this will happen is still out there.
7. No Deal would probably mean the Backstop being in effect anyway in practice, simply because its the only way to stop a hard border.
8. The penny has dropped with the DUP over this, and they have finally abandoned the idea of a hard brexit and possibly brexit all together if it threatens NI position in the union. They would rather remain. Thus the GFA problem is at least acknowledged.
9. The DUP did something curious in the indicative votes. They signalled where there was room for them to move, in how they voted - they revealed what they were opposed to and what they might be talked into with their abstaining
10. There seems to be moves elsewhere to a softer brexit with more signatories to Common Market 2.0 gaining support and more vocal support for the Customs Union.
11. Donald Tusk signalled that the EU could change the PD to a custom union relatively easily.
12. May had a meeting earlier with ministers who are urging her to go for No Deal now
13. May said cryptically after the vote in the commons that the process was almost beyond what the house could provide. What she meant by this isn't obvious.
14. The problem is that any deal requires the WA to pass... the WA merely is the divorce arrangement and not the economic and political alignment aftewards. All soft Brexits require the WA.

The DUP will never support the backstop.
And Labour although they say they accept the WA will never support a blind Brexit and distrust the Tories fearing they will backtrack on any PD.
The only way to square this circle is to have a legally binding PD which looks a lot like the backstop with NI and the rUK in it.
Which the ERG would never buy into.
And the EU might not allow.

And to get an extension we'd need to pass legislation for EP elections - and its difficult to work out where May would get a majority in the HoC from to facilitate that without the government collasping in the attempt.

Thus as we move forward the stakes get higher, and without any progress on a deal the chances of both No Deal and Revoke get higher. And I don't fancy testing May's resolve to revoke - especially since that might require parliamentary approval too. Is there a majority to revoke if the alternative really is No Deal?

Parliament needs to move FAST to avoid both. Parliament isn't good at moving fast.

I also note that the DUP's political survival might well rest now with remaining. Apparently like the Conservatives, the uncertainity of Brexit has lead to a loss of confidence in the party amongst business leaders, which has led to a drop in donations. This is coupled with May's threat that No Deal would result in Direct Rule. The likes of Arlene are on the Stormont Pay Role, so this would starve them of money there. And this is all without the prospect of polling on an all Ireland referendum. The ERG hanging them out to dry, only serves to make it or the more likely.

Surely an election beckons one way or another, later this year? This is unsustainable for the DUP. And for May who has today, refused to rule one out...

Prediction: We are going to get through a lot of threads and have late nights between the 9th and 12th.

Relative is arguing that with the UK net contribution and trade deficit we get more back.

I feel like I am beating my head against a brick wall. Help please for logical counter argument.

You see him ignoring Jewish MPs being attacked though, so much for pacifist principles - he’s more a wimp who avoids confrontation.

Amber Rudd looks the best of a bad bunch, although many of us said that about Theresa May in 2016...

I wish the Tories would have a damascene conversion and elect Ken Clarke as leader.

To be honest what scares me more about Brexit now is the rising fury of the growing hard right.

Let them riot. They’ll all end up in prison like the 2010 rioters.

Far too early for Labour to be optimistic about a GE result:

Delta poll has Tiggers as an option, who seem to have taken almost all their 9% support from the Tories

Tory Remainers jumping ship ?

However, in an early GE, Tiggers won't have the infrastructure and can't possible have / vet candidates for many seats

Also, as they'll have to produce some concrete policies other than Revoke / soft Brexit, that may cost them support

• it did with the SDP

So I'd be very dubious about them being able to take this % from the Tories in a GE

Corbyn seems to ignore / tolerate extreme violence when he agrees with the motives
e.g. Hizbollah, IRA, Venezuela, Russia

He's not a pacifist at all
He just supports people that most other UK politicians don't

Tatiana, I'm leaning that way too. As a country we should absolutely not pander to thugs and people who threaten riots. The problem with bullies is that if you don't stand up to them they get worse. So we have to stand up to them.

The govt are under pressure to quash proceedings against Soldier F for the Bloody Sunday murders

and indeed to grant "historical immunity" to British forces in all conflicts

That's the pressure from the hard right

If the far right gain sufficient power, then charges against them may be squashed by a cowardly / sympathetic govt

We need to prioritise fighting back against the far right, because appeasing them only makes them stronger
The chaos and economic downturn after No Deal would be their best opportunity to gain real power

Has this already been posted?

UKIP insurgent attempting to take Grieve's seat is a Pantomime Producer.

@faisalislam
Dominic Grieve deselection campaign being led by someone who not only stood against him as Ukip candidate in GE 2017, was a UKIP local council candidate and local branch chairman of Ukip, but also stood for the UKIP National Executive Council in 2016... now a Conservative.

In his UKIP General election from 2017 he describes himself as a “pantomime producer” - he appears to have produced and starred in his own west end expose on the “Truth” about Diana.

“Truth, Lies and Diana”

This Grieve story has legs, as they say

Pantomime Producer.

The trouble is the far right have some legitimate grievances, as we all do, about the increasing difficulty of making a living in our country. I absolutely have no tolerance for those from well-off backgrounds who have egged them on over the last 20 years or so - the bloody tabloid headlines, Farage, Johnson. Cameron. Every politician with influence who has kept quiet as harassment has increased and failed to protest against inflaming headlines.

The far right in Germany in the 1930s had legitimate grievances:
needing a wheelbarrow of money to buy groceries, their life savings becoming worthless etc

The strategy should be to take measures to tackle the economic pain, the housing issue in many areas
not to pander to them about immigration, not to tolerate their nationalist xenophobia

and a No Deal Brexit would make lives much worse for most people who aren't well off.

So let me get this straight.
TM is told she can't call a GE
Demands that she does not ask for extension past May 22nd.
Demands not to present WA again.
Threats that if she doesn't go for softer brexit there will be resignations
Demands that if she does not go for no deal there will be resignations.
Demands for her to resign.......

And TM says Parliament can't make their minds up? ( apologies if I missed anything out)

BCF - totally agree. And bring back law, real law, accessible to all, applicable to all.

The far right in Germany in the 1930s had legitimate grievance

No they didn't.

Not against the Jews
but they did have against the economic disaster that they didn't cause

The far right, sponsored by wealthy business people diverted this anger onto a scapegoat group who were identified as "foreign"

• and also made great profits themselves from confiscated Jewish businesses and later from slave labour

The far right used this scapegoating tactic very successfully in several countries over the decades
They keep using it, because it works on so many people, even educated ones

We must distinguish between the leaders, who exploit genuine grievances by scapegoating the furrin
and ordinary people who have the grievances - and should realise they are being manipulated, but too many don't

See how many people, even reasonable-sounding educated educated ones,
think that native British people are suffering economically and access to services,
... because of immigrants

See how many MN posters insist we must restrict E27 immigration, even as a condition of revoking.
Immigration is not causing our problems; in fact it helps the economy, increases the tax take and hence eases the problems.

If we suffer really serious economic damage that affects the lives of ordinary people, imagine how much nastier this could get

At the moment I think the far right is pretty much what we saw yesterday. A small handful of very nasty people who will take any opportunity to cause trouble. But such trouble will be limited and relatively easily swept up.
Pandering to them will cause the far right to grow.
If brexit is cancelled via revoke or a P.V there will be a day of anger - maybe as much as a weekend - and the far right, such as it is, will cause trouble. Most leavers will want nothing to do with them - they will not join in. If a GE follows a cancellation of brexit then we all get the opportunity to choose ourselves a new government and start to move forward - hopefully fixing the things that are broken, and not looking for excuses and scapegoats.
At the moment it is not too late quash the far right back down where they came from. They are all noise - no substance.
Hardships caused by brexit will cause the far right to grow and harden - and then things will be truly out of hand - as people with no hope look for someone to blame.
There is a way to make the hard right go away - it's to tell them 'no'. But we must do this quickly. We mustn't be afraid of upsetting them for fear of what they might do. And we must not capitulate to them - because it will never be enough. Brexit will enable the hard right. Remain will smack them back down.

If they really were a problem - there would have been lots more riots and violence up and down the country yesterday. That would have continued today. Threats of anger and violence from disappointed leavers have been massively oversold by people like Farage, trying to put the frighteners on. Most people who want brexit do not want it badly enough to break the law and risk prison.

I can image the chat between May and the Queen on Wednesday...

I do think the Queen genuinely would want what is good for the whole country. I am not a Royalist by any means, but I do think she takes her duty seriously. Theresa May I am sure thinks she is doing her duty, but she does have a strange way of showing it.

www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/opinion/sunday/britain-brexit.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

Our inability to state difficult truths without first offering some reassuring patriotism accounts, in some ways, for the failure of the Remain argument. In making a negative case against leaving the European Union — that it will cause irreparable harm to the economy, that vital flows of food and medicine may be disrupted, that we will consign ourselves to bit-part status on the global stage — Remainers’ concerns have been dismissed as traitorous fantasy, the manipulative catastrophizing of what Brexiteers call “Project Fear.”

And so, all too often, Remainers reach for the same dreamy jingoism as those who would have us violently depart the European Union with no terms in place. There is no patriotic argument for Remain because Brexit itself is a cautionary argument against blind national pride. It’s precisely this empty, hopeless paradox that in June 2016 led to Prime Minister David Cameron, in a last-ditch effort to persuade voters to side with the European Union, telling us, pathetically, that “Brits don’t quit”...

...So here we are, facing more delays and uncertainty. The Defense Ministry reportedly is hunkering down in a nuclear bunker, preparing for “no deal,” a crash headlong into a future from which we mistakenly thought our past would protect us. We are pathologically unable to say what needs to be said: that nostalgia, exceptionalism and a xenophobic failure of the collective imagination have undone us. This is not a time of national pride, it is a moment of deep and lasting national shame. We are unable to lead yet determined never to follow. We have nothing of note to say and yet still refuse to listen. The very forces that have shored up our self-regard and poisoned our place in history are about to erode us from within, and unless we find in ourselves the humility we’ve always abhorred, we face a brutal and potentially permanent humbling.

All in all quite bleak.

I thought this article was interesting in light of the comment on the Union Jack at the Remain march.

I think the instinct of the poster who did not buy a flag for her DD was correct.

As of a couple of minutes ago the petition is over 5 997 500

Well, if the far right are going to kick off whatever happens, surely we should just revoke article 50? At least that way the rest of us get to keep our jobs and not die from lack of medicine. Although, that’s the sensible solution, so clearly not going to happen.

Wrt the far right, surely it wouldn't be a problem to issue rubber or plastic bullets and tear gas to the police, like they did in NI during the Troubles?

The far right couldn't possibly have any objection to the maintenance of law and order or use of deadly force, since they are outraged at the thought of soldiers being held to account in a court of law for their actions back then.

The plastic bullet might even be classed as one of the technological breakthroughs that Britain can be proud of - it was developed specifically for use in riots in NI. I can't see the far right having any objections at all.

I have a plan! I think I should write to Treeza. Let’s wait until Meghan has her baby, then quietly revoke article 50 when everyone is distracted. Of course, this relies on the baby arriving before the 12th, but that’s a minor issue.