Westminstenders: Long live liberalism

[RedToothBrush]

Talk of its demise are premature.

(Sorry up to eyeballs this weekend)

sorry, it's a link which won't come up properly, I've retyped by hand:

BJ 67%, Hunt 27%

Where though is the Brexit party?

Farage realised they would lose.

Darran Marshalll@DarranMarshall*

Statement from the @ElectoralCommUKK^:

“We are very concerned about the Government’s proposed postponement of the requirement to call a @NIAssemblyy^ election.
In a democracy,"

Peter Fosterr@pmdfoster*

For an idea of what 'no deal' border means, take a look at this from the Road Haulage Association @RHADuncanB

....this is what is necessary to avoid total chaos at the ports in a 'no deal'...though even then, the RHA still anticipates major disruption./3

So friend and I were contacted by ITV last week to invite us to the televised debate between bojo and jezza on Tuesday. The researcher asked us a few questions about past voting habits and future intentions in a forthcoming GE. He also enquired about our presence on social media and our jobs (both nhs nurses). Fast forward to today and I’ve received an email saying that we no longer have tickets because ‘the balance of the programme has been changed.’ Pretty miffed to be honest and suspect we should have pretended to be leave voting tories

Very late PMK

They are killing the GFA by just ignoring it.

Hopefully the Irish government will start making noises as they are entitled to under the provisions of the GFA.

Alex Wickham @alexwickham
NEW: Boris Johnson has today backed a Singapore-style tax free port at Bristol… six weeks after receiving a £25,000 payment from the owners of Bristol port

Cash-for-policy questions for the Tory leadership frontrunner:

Boris Johnson today endorsed a report recommending Bristol port as one of six tax free ports

The report showed Bristol port could benefit from hundreds of millions of pounds of extra cash per year

Six weeks ago Bristol port paid Johnson £25,000...

The Johnson-backed report specifically recommends Bristol port as a candidate tax free zone...

Today Johnson said his govt will "consider specific candidate sites"...

www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/boris-johnson-bristol-port-company-free?__twitter_impression=true
Boris Johnson Backed A Singapore-Style Tax Free Port At Bristol 6 Weeks After Receiving £25,000 From The Bristol Port Company
The Tory leadership frontrunner has endorsed a report specifically calling for his donor's port at Bristol to be made a tax-free zone.

Some more financial interests in the background;

Lynton Crosby lobby firm works with high-sugar drinks brand

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/05/lynton-crosby-lobby-firm-works-high-sugar-drinks-brand

The firm run by Lynton Crosby, whose business partner is helping Boris Johnson run his Tory leadership bid, lobbies in Australia on behalf of a major flavoured milk brand that contains more sugar than Coca-Cola, it has emerged.

Last week Johnson announced that as prime minister he would reconsider a taxx* introduced last year that places a levy on high-sugar drinks.

The tax does not cover sugary milk-based drinks but the health secretary, Matt Hancock, has suggested this could happen as a way of tackling childhood obesity.
....
Johnson’s campaign is being directed by Mark Fullbrook, who co-runs the London company in Crosby’s empire,
Crosby Textor Fullbrook Partners (CTFP).
....
Fullbrook ...... was also behind Zac Goldmith’s losing mayoral campaign four years later,
which was condemned by critics as racistt^ for focusing extensively on the Muslim background of the eventual winner, Labour’s Sadiq Khan.
........
In January it emerged that Johnson received £23,00000^ in loans and donations from CTF Partners* to help pay for office and staffing costs.
......
Crosby’s UK company oversaw a network of secretive pro-Brexit Facebook campaignss*,
part of a wider effort to undermine May and push Britain towards a hard Brexit.

www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/brexit-binds-ireland-closer-to-germany-in-pushing-ambitious-joint-agenda-1.3946787

Ireland is gearing up to dump the UK trade relationship and focusing on Germany. President Michael D. Higgins is on a state visit.

Three years after the Brexit vote, as two Tory politicians vie for the keys of 10 Downing Street and promise voters imminent Brexit and fantastical post-EU trade deals, Ireland is acting rather than talking. Last year it identified and began an intense courtship of Germany, the EU’s largest and most influential member, as its indispensible partner.

A year on, as the two countries celebrate nine decades of diplomatic relations, ministeral traffic is at an all-time high. On Monday, influential Bavarian allies of chancellor Angela Merkel touch down in Ireland for a high-level visit.

Together with this week’s state visit, it marks a high-point of increased diplomatic and political engagement with Germany. But a third pillar of last year’s “wider and deeper” strategy on Germany is closer economic co-operation.

Whether for inward investment, exports or tourism, Germany is a top five country for Ireland with potential for much more. For Irish business people already engaged in Europe’s largest market, this week’s visit has been heartening and a timely paradigm shift on Irish trading with Germany: from talk to practice.

25K seems such chicken feed to sell yourself for.

Indeed.
What HAS the man going for him?

Continuing the "mutual favours" theme:

George Osborne prepares bid to become first British head of the IMF

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/george-osborne-prepares-bid-to-become-first-british-head-of-the-imf-m3lflbtqd

Mr Osborne will need the nomination of Britain’s next prime minister to succeed.

The Evening Standard, which he edits, recently endorsed Boris Johnson in the Conservative leadership race

Yep, math
Ireland has been high profile here since soon after the ref

Widespread sympathy for them as innocent victims of Britain's Brexit madness

All the prepping and work by Irish govt and diplomats has paid off

The Uk govt in contrast just haranangues and talks about Nazis

• all very negative & insulting for the current population and hasn't gone down well.

https://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2019/07/05/week-in-review-remain-starts-to-gather

Boris Johnson versus Jeremy Hunt is an intellectual death-spiral.
Each day brings some new moment of horrible stupidity, another promise they know they can't deliver, another strategic blunder.

Because Johnson is so obscene, he eclipses Hunt's foolishness, which is really very substantial indeed.
In any normal contest, it would be widely noted, but here it simply blends in with the culture around him, like political camouflage.

The former health secretary seems congenitally incapable of maintaining any political position whatsoever.
This week he told the Telegraph he would "vote to repeal the ban on fox hunting"
and then, mere hours later, insisted "this is not something I will seek to change as prime minister".

It was like someone had left a jelly on a railway track. 🤦🏻‍♀️
....
But despite all that, there are glimmers of hope.

Last night Remain parties worked together to establish a candidate for the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election on August 1st
First the Greens dropped out to make way for the Liberal Democrats,
then Plaid Cymru did.

Remain now has a straight fight for the seat.
The Lib Dems have an 8,038 Tory majority to overturn, but they will do so in the most advantageous scenario possible:
with a united Remain front and the pro-Brexit forces divided between between the Tories and Brexit party.

Almost identical to ConHome poll of Tory members

BJ & Brexiters will probably declare this a huge mandate - from Tory members only - for No Deal


Europe Elects@EuropeElects

UK, YouGov poll:

Conservative (ECR) leadership election:

Boris Johnson: 74%
Jeremy Hunt: 26%

Field work: 1-5 July 2019
Sample size: 908 Conservative (ECR) members

BJ has raised over £800,000 in campaign donations since November

Hunt is way behind
Both clearly funded by the"elite" that Brexiters claim to oppose
(oh sorry, if they are hard right, that doesn't count as elite)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/05/tory-leadership-donations-whos-really-backing-boris-johnson

The role of donors to Tory leadership candidates has come into focus after it emerged Boris Johnsonn^ and Jeremy Hunt have taken money from a climate change denier,
a director of companies based in tax havens,
a fox hunting enthusiast,
fast food millionaires
and a banker with close links to the Saudi regime, among others.
.....
Who is giving away all this money?

A relatively small and incredibly select group of people, almost entirely from the worlds of finance, banking and property
– who would arguably have a vested interest in lower tax rates for the high-paid (a Johnson proposal),
slashing the rate of corporation tax (as Hunt seeks to do),
and a government with less interest in regulating businesses.

For Johnson,
of 27 individual donors who can be identified – who donated more than £200,000 between them – 11 work in investment and asset management or similar jobs, with four more owning hedge funds and two being property developers.
With corporate donations, Johnson received seven separate contributions from the digger company JCB and its pro-Brexit boss, Anthony Bamford, among others.

Of 12 Hunt donors
who can be identified from the register, five are connected to investments or private equity, with one running a hedge fund.
Hunt’s donors in part also reflect his time as health secretary: they include the director of a healthcare company, and a transplant surgeon.

You know, the more I hear about both candidates and their funding, the more I hope the winner will be politically hung out to dry by Parliament in the very near future.

Last night Remain parties worked together to establish a candidate for the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election on August 1st^
First the Greens dropped out to make way for the Liberal Democrats, then Plaid Cymru did.

Does this pose a dilemma for the Brexit Party? They have to stand to show they mean business, but if they do stand, they split the Tory vote.

I think that the BP will be too arrogant/stupid/confident to see any dilemma and tbh it's probably becoming a case of the Torres splitting the vote.

BTW in OxfordWest and Abingdon at the last GE the LibDems had a 9500 majority to overturn. It was achieved by throwing everything at it - volunteers coming up from places like Winchester to help out, and the Greens standing down their candidate.

So it's possible.

Oh and one volunteer who works for Catherine Bearder in Brussels taking his holiday to come and help. Now that was dedication. It paid off.

Saw this on FB (shared by a friend who is not normally political).

Rather wonderful letter in The Times

My ballot paper has arrived (I joined the Conservative not party on 31st March specifically to vote for the new leader) but, as an ardent LibDem remainer, who should I vote for? Please advise - I’m a long term lurker. Thanks.

Does this pose a dilemma for the Brexit Party? They have to stand to show they mean business, but if they do stand, they split the Tory vote.

Absolutely, it makes it far more likely that the LDs will win, so they’d lose the battle.... and a LD win makes a GE more likely (one few Tory rebel needed) making it more likely they’ll lose the war too!