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.

...even though it might help bring about Scottish Independence more quickly, I can't bring myself to actively want the No Deal chaos to happen - whatever the little devil on one shoulder might be saying.

Thanks BCF

I didn't plan on having a child with a disability, yet alone 2 and myself becoming disabled too (plus my exH turning out to be hopeless)
BUT - We are all only 1 accident (my kids were not accidents, and I was married and working when I had them) away from real difficulty without a significant financial cushion. I understand that the Camerons had a child with a disability and I am in no way comparing my situation. My child is alive and I am grateful.
But it makes a difficult life unnecessarily harder when you have to deal with all this nonsense and its hard to aim for a return to work in due course without being able to plan. Not only is it a bit dehumanising, it doesn't even make financial sense. But I guess that's not the point if you are BoJo/JRM/Cameron (who should have known better, imo)

I understand that the Camerons had a child with a disability and I am in no way comparing my situation.

Which makes his presiding over the whole PIP/ESA horror show even more cunty.

I can't bring myself to actively want the No Deal chaos to happen

Believing it will happen isn't wishing for it to happen. Unless you subscribe to magical thinking. Which I don't. (Even if I can cast a horoscope by hand ...)

@ARoomWithoutADoor that sounds tough

Nick Eardley on Twitter

No 10 source: “It’s utterly perverse that Corbyn and his allies are actively seeking to sabotage the UK’s position. This coalition of anti-democrats should be honest with the British public, they are against us leaving the EU no matter what.”

Is Cummings rattled?

aroom it's not self pity it's facts of life. Thank you for sharing your facts because they enable others an insight into lives beyond their own.

I sound like an odd hallmark card

Just been into my nearest small town - saw a homeless person begging for the first time.

I suppose I'm used to seeing it in the larger towns :(

Believing it will happen (which unfortunately, I now think is likely) is different to actively wanting it to happen - even though it advances a different cause I believe in . On occasions, the little devil on my shoulder has indeed whispered in my ear along the lines of, BigChoc's "fuck it, let them gave their No Deal good & hard" - but I do shut the devil up, because of fears for the most vulnerable in society and continue to support those politicians who are actively trying to stop it.

We've talked before on these threads about whether No Deal needs to happen in order to lance the boil of the ERG, the Brexit Party et al, but still I can't bring myself to actively want it despite the wee devil because of the fallout for the poorest and most vulnerable even if some of them voted for it and because even if the consequences are dire, the ERG, the Brexit Party et al will just say it's someone else's fault (the EU, the Remoaners, the Scots, the Irish, the Jews.... anyone but them ) and the main protagonists will be shielded from the fall out anyway, unlike the poorest and most vulnerable

.........and breeeeeathe

AR I’m sure it’s not going to make you feel any better, but a friend of mine (not in the U.K.) has got both kids with type1 diabetes, and for both of them she needs to do a medical every year to confirm they’re still diabetic! As if you could cure type1 diabetes!! (If only!!) And that basically is needed just to get a certain simplified procedure for prescriptions and time off work to accompany them to doctors appointment. It’s not like they get any monetary subsidy...
So, maybe it’s better for our mental health not to question the sanity of bureaucratic procedures. Let’s hope that quietly behind the scenes there’s plenty of sensible, reasonable employees working in their various departments making the right assessments when it comes to health and children in particular....

A Downing Street source accused them of "seeking to sabotage the UK's position" in talks with the European Union.

Funny how the same group of people didn't mind the EU being lobbied when May was PM by UK politicians opposed to the WA

Queen I agree, as the HoC has voted against him doing that

I was answering those who feel betrayed that she hasn't already stepped in - imo, she is absolutely right not to have done so yet

We've talked before on these threads about whether No Deal needs to happen in order to lance the boil of the ERG, the Brexit Party et al

The thing is it won't.

No matter what happens, it will never satisfy the coalition of cunts that you listed. They really are the spoilt brats they were bought up as, expecting the world to owe them a living. They exist on the other end of a line which starts with Gandhi who was happy to spin and live on a handful of rice a day. A line that extends into infinity ... when you think you have reached the end, it goes on again ....

Incidentally, I am sure I'm not making this up, but hasn't the UK been quite happy to talk to other countries opposition representatives when it suited in the past ?

Farage and iirc some hard right Tories were going round EU countries asking the far right parties to lobby there govt to veto UK requests for extensions

That's sabotage

Farage and iirc some hard right Tories were going round EU countries asking the far right parties to lobby there govt to veto UK requests for extensions

Is that not mentioned now because it was Farage, or because it failed ?

DGR - the second part of my comment points out that it won't.

I think that we are actually vehemently agreeing

And sadly, even those that aren't shielded from the negative impacts, but who voted nevertheless voted for it, will be just as susceptible to the lies that it is "the others'" fault, because otherwise they would have to admit that they brought their misery on themselves as well as everyone else

Cummings rattled by this perhaps - the beginnings of an agreement over strategy.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49483374

It's a beginning. It's a little late in the day for beginnings.

Funny how asking other countries to interfere was OK in March.... ...but our own MPs trying to use Parliament's own procedures is not

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/brexiteers-are-lobbying-eu-leaders-to-veto-brexit-extension-so-uk-crashes-out-with-no-deal/13/03/

I kinda differ in vulnerable leavers bringing it on themselves.

This isnt to say individuals don't have free will or they're thick and therefore should be mollycoddled but more me finger pointing at the irresponsibility of the Tories. They abused people then offered them a life changing choice. If your ground down, fighting to survive every month, using foodbanks, pay day loans and just wanting change because where your at is just so challenging why is the status quo (remain) appealling? Why would you vote more the same? More the same is already harming you.

Thinking about it over the past three years I'm almost surprised the leave margin wasn't bigger.

I'm almost surprised I didn't vote for it myself as i don't want more the same either. But three years ago was a different time for me, DP was undiagnosed we were more optimistic, he was just off sick not sacked, we hadn't gone through ESA and PIP. I understand more and I wish I didn't.

Obviously I'm glad I voted remain and still would vote remain but I am sad we're putting a lot of effort to sustain what we have when what we have is no where near enough....not that that is the EUs fault!

So yeah sorry that's a long winded way to say fuck tories and farage and I only hold them responsible.

hazard - I too contemplated voting Leave to give Cameron a kick in the teeth. Then I thought that this was negative and it's best to vote for positives. For me the positive was the GFA, so I voted Remain. It was only as the results came in that I realised how strongly I felt.

Jesus Christ is the source of reconciliation and healing for individuals and society. It is obviously right that among many others the churches should contribute to the emergence of a dynamic and united country post-Brexit, however it may be achieved. Every one of us must play the part they can in this task

Welby.

And if people who are on this thread - are staunch remainers and are engaged with the whole process - can recount tales of how they nearly voted for leave for reasons absolutely nothing to do with the EU - how many of the actual 17 million are the same, except they fell the other way?
It just seems so clear that once the result came in they should have actually taken stock, looked into what it actually meant and found out what they actually had a mandate for ... because it probably wasn't 'leave' to begin with. It was 'end austerity and whilst you're at it fuck off Cameron'. It certainly was never a mandate for no deal.

At the risk of sounding like an idiot (or genius ) for all this talk of no-deal, is there a truly definitive list of what it means for the UK and for the EU ? I'm not talking about headlines or speeches or even leaked government reports. But an inventory of what goes - and (just as important) in what order ?

Because I'm starting to get a sense that the current shower of incompetents we have been lumbered with are somehow able to fuck up no-deal, just as they've fucked up the past 3 years.

I'm not thinking of a glib "all the treaties cease" answer - that's for Brexiteers to wank themselves silly over. More a second by second listing of what stops working, why, and (more importantly) what it will affect further down the track ?

I'm thinking such a resource is actually impossible to produce - the levels of complexity are too great.

To illustrate what I'm (trying) to get at ... come 00:00:00:001 1st November 2019, what's the very first thing that stops ? Presumably something computer driven ? What will it's failing do to the processes it feeds, and so on ?

(Thought I'd continue to type, while MN Towers wind the servers up for the day) ...

As an example of what I'm thinking of ... Galileo - with its PRS element. I presume the UK has access at the moment. We are, after all, a member of the EU. However the moment that ceases, so does access to PRS. If indeed we are using it.

Here's[ what they didn't tell you about Galileo. Well worth a read for it's remarkable unformal language. ("unformal" may not be a proper word, but I CBA to dredge up a correct one).

At school we did choral poetry and one of the poems we recited was The Lotos-eaters, specifically the stanza that begins "There is sweet music here that softer falls..."
How I hated it. And why it was considered suitable for teenagers to recite (very druggy), I don't know.