Westminstenders: It couldn't get any worse... Until today

[RedToothBrush]

We are trapped in the tailspin of the end of the UK. Firmly headed downward and getting more and more frenzied and desperate.

Even the most sensible of types like David Allen Green have finally noticed that Brexit isn't about leaving the EU it's about the frenzied and wilful destruction of our state instutions and structure. The collapse of the civil service, of our justice system, our democratic institutions and social order. All in the name of rule Britannia, a warped sense of taking back control to preserve an ideal that never existed and an idea of sovereignity that simply was a fantasy.

We move ever closer to Johnson becoming Prime Minister and a life under President Trump.

Joy.

Ode to Joy really isn't that bad.

I suspect they will. Either they will switch over to intensive production or they will go under.

I was talking about now.

I'm still not going down the total annihilation of our food markets route yet.

There will be a market for higher welfare meat. As there is now. I really don't think it'll vanish.

And we won't have a trade deal overnight, so it's not going to happen overnight.

To me it is all like a Shakespearean Play without the intellect of WS.

Someone is going to have egg on their face soon enough. No matter what.

One thing is certain: this will all end badly for the Tories, whatever direction the new PM takes. So that's one positive.

I've no idea why anybody would want to be PM right now. It's an even more poisoned chalice than TM had.

I really hope that the manic No Deal rhetoric was just for the 150k Tory members who would vote for him.

Another extension beckons as offered by Ms Von der Leyen. She knows, he knows, we all know this no deal stance is ridiculous.

BigChocFrenzy Thu 11-Jul-19 22:51:48
Ah, it's a rightwing US perennial then, now crossed the Atlantic to the British right

It's a Small Government trope in its American incarnation.
This tends to be right wing of course (libertarian in its philosophical origins) but the appeal to Trump and poorer GOP voters is also racist - the people you are most likely to encounter across the service counter from you if you have dealings with US bureaucracy are middle aged African American women.

I really hope that the manic No Deal rhetoric was just for the 150k Tory members who would vote for him.

This is what I'm clinging on to. You can say what you like to get voted in. But then you actually have to do the job. Totally different kettle of fish.

fluffy I'd expect any US trade deal to take at least 2 and more likely 5+ years to negotiate and ratify - if we haven't started negotiations by then to join EFTA / EEA

With the 2020 Presidential election, the US govt and Congress will be otherwise engaged until early 2021 on matters they consider far more important
And then there is the likely refusal of Congress to damage the GFA / Ireland, hence agreeing in effect an NI-only backstop .....

Maybe I'm too optimistic re the USA deal, but imo it is some years away - and may never happen at all

One thing is certain: this will all end badly for the Tories, whatever direction the new PM takes. So that's one positive.

I wish we could be certain of that, but they have a habit of passing the blame onto everyone else.

That's how I'm seeing it, BCF. Hence crossing that bridge if / when we come to it.

I always prefer to see hope than despair, where possible. 😁

I wish we could be certain of that, but they have a habit of passing the blame onto everyone else.

I'm not sure that's working right now. They're being destroyed in elections all over. I think the 'passing the buck' ship has sailed.

Politics in the UK is changing. The parties need to evolve and adapt or die.

OMG. Just watching some the final husting on Youtube.
OMG.

HOW, just HOW, can intelligent people think that Boris Johnson is fit to lead our country?

Someone, please explain his appeal.

re No Deal, I'm much less sanguine, however:

If BJ blinks, even to request an extension, the Brexiters will turn on him as they did May, once she started to avoid No Deal

Brexiters have enough power in the 1922 Committee to have already booted out one leader.
He knows he's next if he strays from the No Deal line

He would place his short term political survival much higher than preventing great harm to the country, or even to the Tory party

And we know that True Brexiters are prepared to destroy the UK and their own party, to get True Brexit

It may be that he can't obtain the confidence of the HoC, in which case May stays PM

I'd expect her then to request an extension - in order to hold a GE and give a new govt some time

However, a GE with JC leading Labour might return a Tory govt with a working majority
or a hung Parliament that might need LDem and / or SNP c & s to form a govt, instead of the DUP

..the Brexiters will turn on him as they did May, once she started to avoid No Deal

Now, I am not sure of that; a man and an old Etonian to boot is much more acceptable to the Tory party than a mere woman. OK they worshipped Thatcher, but she was like Nanny. May wasn't like Nanny, May was a bossy Headmistress.

WHY does the future of the Tory party matter more than the future of the country, and the people of the country? (sorry, stupid stupid question, so fucked off with the lot of them...)

It may be that he can't obtain the confidence of the HoC, in which case May stays PM

I can still see that happening ... I wonder what the protocol would be if BJ rocked up to the Palace claiming he has the confidence of the house (not the government - him personally) and JC disagrees and the Palace ask the House to demonstrate it ?

The FPTA is an untested beast.

Saw this on Facebook earlier.It shows that Boris really does say what he thinks he should say; nothing to do with conviction of belief.

The EU, "is better placed to strike trade deals with the US, or China than the UK is on its own."

He has been misquoted and taken out of context - he wrote an article for the Telegraph in 2013, "We must be ready to leave the EU if we don’t get what we want" - "the pros and cons to staying in Europe" ...

"Let’s try to weight it up, as fairly as we can.Here are my first few thoughts on why a rational person might consider staying in the EU."

"3.Global influence.The EU is arguably better placed to strike trade deals with the US, or China, than the UK on its own, though this proposition is plainly untested, and the idea of an EU “Common Foreign Policy” is plainly a joke."

"On the other side of the ledger let us consider the advantages of getting out."

"1.We save money.We would no longer have to cough up for the EU budget, and could spend those billions in the UK."

"2.We get back our sovereignty–especially over our borders, where we would no longer be in the mad position of being forced to extend our entire welfare system to anyone from Bulgaria or Romania, while keeping out lucrative Chinese tourists to achieve immigration caps."

"3.We make our own laws again.We would no longer be forced to accept the vast corpus of EU regulation and legislation–much of it too detailed and interfering–that has added to the costs of British business; though we would also find ourselves being forced to comply, thanks to the sheer lunar pull of the EU market, if we want to continue to export to Europe."

"4.We can no longer blame Brussels.This is perhaps the most important point of all. If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and under-investment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure."

"This renegotiation can only work if we understand clearly what we want to achieve: a pared-down relationship based on free trade and cooperation.And our partners will only take us seriously if they think we will invoke Article 50, and pull out, if we fail to get what we want.If we are going to have any chance of success in the negotiations, we need to show that the UK is willing to walk away."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10052775/We-must-be-ready-to-leave-the-EU-if-we-dont-get-what-we-want.html

Someone, please explain his appeal.
Does the above help?

WHY does the future of the Tory party matter more than the future of the country, and the people of the country?

I think May genuinely thought that what was good for the Tory party was good for the whole country.

George Parker
Verified account
@GeorgeWParker

At Tory hustings @BorisJohnson delights audience with tale of Isle of Man kipper smokers being tied up in red tape. New rules might apply to exports but worth noting Isle of Man is not in the EU

Indeed @BorisJohnson kipper story accidentally shows what happens to countries outside EU.. like Isle of Man you have to apply EU rules if you want to sell into the single market but you have no say over the rules

I think May genuinely thought that what was good for the Tory party was good for the whole country.

I totally agree with that. So many times in interviews she talked about the party rather than the country. It’s the same with this leadership contest, it’s all about the party. Listening to the hustings and it seems to me that the questioners live in a different world to me.

Peregrina Fri 12-Jul-19 08:20:01

Why aren't the Brexit party standing?
If they want to contest 650 seats next GE, they need to get organising, and getting some practice in via a Local election is a good way to go about it

They are a pressure group, not a political party, a mouthpiece of Farage, nothing more, operating via SM. Parliament doesn't matter to Farage. That is not how he exercises power.

NF will contest the next GE remotely by trying to push the Tories further into the Brexit camp. It will be a case of power without responsibility.

I wish people would call him Johnson. Hunt is never called Jeremy (well I suppose that could be because of the other Jeremy, wouldn't want them mixed up!) But still.

Boris as a moniker gives him credence as a cuddly blonde buffoon. Whereas he is a charlatan really.

Just saying. But I suppose it's media driven anyway. Sigh.

To bother to answer Clavinova's cut and paste efforts.

1. We won't 'cough up' for the EU. Instead we will spend money on complying with other countries regulations. Boris Johnson should know, given the amount of taxpayers money he wasted as Mayor of London - Garden Bridge, Cable Car, illegal water cannons, expensive routemaster buses. We could spend billions sensibly now in this country, but the Tories choose not too.

2. Sovereignty was not lost. We could let in as many lucrative Chinese people as we liked. The EU didn't impose immigration caps - it was Johnson's old Etonian chum Cameron.

3. We still make the vast majority of our own laws. As members of the EU, if we had bothered to use that influence we could have improved laws we didn't think were effective. I notice how he doesn't address the issue of the UK adding embellishments to EU law, and then crying crocodile tears about how inconvenient such laws are. Nor does he talk about complying with International law - presumably that needs to be scrapped too? I take it, as one born in America, that he would be in favour of complying with American laws without question?

4. The only point I can agree with. Blaming Brussels has been such a wonderful excuse for his party. They will milk it for all it's worth if there is No Deal - it will be the EU's fault, but in the same way that they blame Labour for all their current ills, the time comes when that excuse no longer works. People start to say 'You have been in power for xx years, what have you done?'

yolofish
Er - no you can't...

saving the Tory party
God forbid Boris Johnson turns out to be a good prime minister - 'Oh, Jeremy Corbyn'?