Westminstenders: 30 days to save us all!

[RedToothBrush]

It's quite remarkable to watch the British press atm.

It's like it doesn't understand English. Well only if its English spoken by foreigners.

Merkel made the observation that the UK had spent two years looking at the Irish border but had failed to come up with a workable solution, and now Johnson has waltzed in and made statements about how the backstop must go, and only has 30 days in which this can be achieved.

The British press writes this up as Merkel giving the UK a deadline to come up with a new solution.

Which is nonsense. The UK have a deadline to save itself, from itself and that's 31st October. This is a self imposed deadline.

Meanwhile comes out with the Brexiteer smack down that he didn't think the UK wS leaving the EU to regain its sovereignty only to become a vassalage or junior partner to the US.

Both these ideas being the result of leaving the EU have long been key issues. From before the ref. Both have been the UK's to solve in order to get the terms the UK wants from a deal.

The referendum was about choosing to align with the EU or to ditch that and rights and align closely with the US. Then Trump happened and the sell on this got harder, but still essentially the same. And it continues.

And then there was the Irish border. The magic solution to Brexit that doesn't break the GFA. I personally think there isn't one as long as the DUP have their red lines about the Irish sea.

So here we are. More than 3 years after the ref.

Leavers still have no plan. Apart for charge headlong over the cliff. Remains still have their heads wedged up their own backsides and also, after spending months criticising every one else on social media anyway who makes a stand again this bull shit.

Yet the newspapers fail to report what Merkel said or why the UK has this issue in the first place. Its an ongoing exercise in national delusion and self denial.

From the rise of the Nazi party.......

In January 1933, Hindenburg and his advisors decided to make a deal with Hitler. He had the popularity they lacked, and they had the power he needed. Hindenburg’s advisors believed that the responsibility of being in power would make Hitler moderate his views. They convinced themselves that they were wise enough and powerful enough to “control” Hitler. They were also certain that he, too, would fail to end the depression. When he failed, they would step in to save the nation. But they were tragically mistaken

We are all making (and have made) the same mistakes again, pandering to nationalistic populism, instead of destroying it.

24 people a day are dying in London due to air pollution. In this global heating heatwave this weekend, it will be many more.

Exactly. People need to get their priorities right.

Exactly. People need to get their priorities right.

It's not either/or. For some fighting air pollution is the priority, for others more generally climate change. For others it will be protesting about Universal Credit or for me, stopping Brexit.

Trump and the right wing press is already building the narrative that no deal/bad deal is the fault of the EU, TM and remainers. It’s extraordinary and I think the leavers will buy it and take it out on the wrong people after 31st of October.

Regarding 1930s appeasement, the Nazis were a minority party, and it was (von ?) Pappenberg that put them into power. The quote being something like:

We'll squeeze Hitler so far into a corner he'll squeak

I would be very wary of assuming Boris won't call an election if it doesn't look like he'll win ... After all Theresa didn't and got 2 years at the helm, and she is nowhere near the narcissist Boris is.

Snap election; minority Tory government, sudden "crisis" requiring enabling powers, and BINGO ! - totalitarian regime.

Boris has an advantage over the Nazis in that he wouldn't even need a mentally ill Dutch communist trying to set fire to Westminster. He just has to say there's one, but we'll have to believe him ... because (if he told us, he'd have to kill us).

jasjas has a better memory than me

(digresses into whether the younger generation are more or less confident to post without Googling first ?)

Takes two to negotiate. No deal is a fail by both sides.

I would be very wary of assuming Boris won't call an election if it doesn't look like he'll win ...

This is where the Opposition and Corbyn especially, have to deny him sufficient votes to call an election and let Johnson take the fall for a No Deal Brexit.

The Prime Minister said no-deal preparations were being ramped up to help secure an agreement, but also "so that if and when we are forced by the obduracy by our European friends to come out on October 31 without a deal that things are as smooth as they can be."

Obduracy? We are forced by the obduracy of our friends??
No deal preparations are ramped up to help us secure an agreement??

Is that me, or that choice of words makes no sense whatsoever? And that’s in English, no translation needed...

Boris Johnson: Britain can easily cope with no-deal Brexit - Evening Standard
apple.news/AU9hr4a0mRMyw2_1HjY0teg

The horrid thing is - as Spock pointed out in a Star Trek episode - the siren call of creeds like Nazism can be irresistible.

Actually it's worth digging into the history of that episode, because it seems the writers were criticised by historians for propagating the myth that the Nazi were somehow a super-efficient society, and that's the myth which is luring the not-so-bright-and-frankly-thick UKIP/BXP hangers on ... it's the little picture they see in their mind just before they have their "special moment" with eyes closed, trousers (or skirts) around their ankles knocking one out to a fantasy of a purely beige high street ... and maybe even the clop of hooves.

(DM would be proud of me - citing Star Trek in a 21st century political debate. Thank god she's no here to see it )

I wonder if the Nazi-themed comparisons are quite so apt ? Maybe we're in a more Tolkienesque world ? All fighting over a mystical "ring" that may as well have been called "sovereignty" ? The EU is the council of Elrond ...

It's a worrying pattern now that he keeps saying one thing and its very opposite in the same sentence. (Like yesterday when asked about access to meds).
It's aimed at minimising transparency (and therefore accountability) as much as possible.

Boris Johnson: Britain can easily cope with no-deal Brexit

In normal society, a Prime Minister using words like "cope" for the entire country would have been grilled to within an inch of their lives.

Instead, not only are they not being held to account, but there's a significant number of people in the electorate who are actually slavering (and more - I suspect a lot of Brexiteer households are seeing a spike in undergarment washing with each increasing pronouncement from Boris ...)

"Frankly I think it's highly unlikely that there will be food shortages of any kind."

Ah well, then it’s fine. Highly unlikely....

In that Tolkienesque world DGR who's our Frodo?

Is there a way of downloading threads other than copying and pasting the whole lot into Word or something?

When I get really worried I wonder how long forums like this one will survive.

Takes two to negotiate. No deal is a fail by both sides

So, if you were selling your house and i offered you 50% of the advertised price (refusing to increase my offer) That becomes OUR fault we failed to clinch the sale?

Johnson has no alternative to the backstop but is expecting the EU to quietly drop the B/stop which in the end protects their SM, a not unreasonable demand.

I suppose a better question to ask is why, if Johnson/ERG/DUP are so sure that alternative arrangements can be put in place, they would be happy to back the WA, safe in the knowledge the backstop would never be needed?

I want to see him interviewed/grilled by Jeremy paxman type. When is next on TV or is avoiding it preferring to broadcast from his Facebook account ?

I read he has cancelled an interview with C4 because they had criticised him. That is very Trumpish.

If he’s clever, he’ll keep bumbling along to mess the waters in public, and avoid any serious questioning. Preferably from HoC as well. His survival rests on him getting us out on the 31.10, or blaming others for not making it.

^Is there a way of downloading threads other than copying and pasting the whole lot into Word or something?

I've got a massive full fat broadband connection, so have set MN to simply show the entire thread when I load it (rather than in "x" pages).

If you do that you can just save the whole page from your browser (or print it to a PDF file).

I'm not sure it you can set alerts to email you every time someone posts. But that would do to. (I occasionally think about investigating that to save all the deleted threads that appear to have become a fashion of late ....)

Guy Verhofstadt @guyverhofstadt

If the UK doesn't pay what is due, the EU will not negotiate a trade deal. After a "no deal", this will be a first condition of any talks. Britain is better than this.

Quelle surprise.

There was a new poster near us. Titanic success has disappeared and next to it another Brexit poster.

I wonder if the Nazi-themed comparisons are quite so apt

It's pathetically apt.

The engish ruling class and the brexist incelry have been fans ever since the 1920s.

Beth Rigby's interview with BlowJob was much harder hitting and probing than the BBC's ( at how the BBC has fallen, but dh points out it wasn't Katya one of the BBC's top flight journalists who interviewed him). She really pushed him on whether he could guarantee medicine and supplies in the event of No Deal and his flannel and evasive answers were obvious. The word "obduracy" was used in that interview - but no doubt in others as he often follows a theme.

Where I was disappointed in Beth was when she was challenging him on communicating properly and openly with the public (that they deserved to know so that they could plan) and he was flanneling in reply, that she didn't follow up with "If you claim you are being open with the public, why are so many companies and trade organisations being constrained by NDAs and are frustrated that they are not allowed to express the seriousness of the consequences?"