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Brexit

Westministenders: Parliament Perogies pushing Rats in the Corner

984 replies

RedToothBrush · 09/09/2019 19:35

One Opposition MP has just talked in parliament about how little the public understand what Preroguation is and what it meant. She described how one constituent thought it was about perogies.

The Benn Bill is now law and compels Johnson to ask for an extension if we have no deal.

Something that he has said he will die in a ditch to avoid and has suggested he would break the law.

But his options are hugely limited - if he refuses to do so and we no deal accidentally now, he is potentially personally liable for loses. He has no majority and the defeats keep on coming as a result.

Everything coming out now is the behaviour of a man with his back to the wall. The only thing he can do is frame everything as a people v the establishment and hope he survived until a GE. This is a dangerous time - he is now a rat in the corner with nothing to lose.

After Rudd's resignation, not much has got better for Johnson. Several other Tory MPs have signalled they won't stand again. This might mean they decide to rebel as they have nothing to lose. Lord Wellington, who has Tory written through him like a stick of rock, has also resigned the party. Attorney General Buckland hasn't resigned but has made threatening noises if the rule of law is broken.

Proroguation now does stack pressure on Johnson. He has to be the one to make moves and that is going to be difficult for him. However it also gives him time to say and do something without the scrutiny of parliament who have been blowing his arguments and legal assertions to bits with such ease.

Today he has visited Dublin where he stood next to Leo Varadkar who was less than polite nor even particularly diplomatic. The discomfort on Johnson's face and in his body language was very obvious. Varadkar in no uncertain terms said: ""if there is no deal, it will cause disruption for British and Irish people alike", adding "there's no such thing as a clean break, or just getting it done" and that he'd recieved no workable plan.

Tonight are two emergency debates. The first has just concluded about the government's lack of willingness to release documents relating to proroguation and operation yellowhammer.

Its been reported that ministers and civil servants have used private communications to conduct government ministers and this has caused huge concerns and Grieve wants to compel the government to release them. The government have responded saying this is an invasion of privacy. This has raised the accusation that Dominic Cummings personally has rifled through the phone messages of the former treasury communications officer as he sacked her and number 10 were not particularly concerned about her privacy then.

At the same time as the debate the government were briefing the press that they would refuse to comply with demands to release information. Grieve then made the point this was leading to the complete breakdown in trust in government.

David Allen Green said that if the government were to do this we could well be headed into a full blown constitutional crisis. This is the first time he's said he thinks we are actually at this stage.

Grieve was supported by the house by 311 votes to 302 votes ordering the government to release the documents.

The second debate is about the Rule of Law and the government's obligation to obey the Rule of Law.

Yet to come tonight is another vote about an early General Election before parliament pergoies, possibly in the early hours.

In other news John Bercow has decided to stand down at the next election or on the 31st October, which ever is sooner. There are rumours he was about to be deselected by his local conservative association and against convention would have to fight an election to win back his seat. He therefore was merely taking action before he was pushed. This might also be an action to protect parliament from the election of a new speaker after another election, fearing that there might be a hard right takeover which could threaten parliamentary soverignity.

Also this:
Declan Lawn @DecLawn
ERG stalwart Andrew Bridgen on @BBCPM saying the only way he could see a NI only backstop being acceptable is if it was put to an NI-only referendum. Fascinating.

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PerkingFaintly · 10/09/2019 16:52

TheABC, I agree about the technical obstacles. I just hope those hold up the attack until the ICO cavalry arrives.

This is only the first wave of attack like this, though. With or without Cummings, all that data is just too delicious to resist.

DGRossetti · 10/09/2019 16:57

Having that illicit info is not just effective for social media: it's also about having the addresses (and how they were planning on voting in the Indyref), both physical and email, which makes it much easier for them to target their canvassing efforts.

But the question remains. Even if a candidate turned up at the door with a Peaky Blinders boxset, crate of prosecco and a years exotic chocolate subscription, would it make anyone change their vote ?

RedToothBrush · 10/09/2019 17:05

Even if a candidate turned up at the door with a Peaky Blinders boxset, crate of prosecco and a years exotic chocolate subscription, would it make anyone change their vote ?

That sounds like a cheap apology when someone's been caught cheating with a work colleague.

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Basilpots · 10/09/2019 17:08

@JeSuisPoulet

Same here re: voting for Corbyn I’m in no way a fan, but the constant badgering makes think ‘bs to you I’m going to vote for him just so it annoys you!’

TBH my bar is so low now it’s set at anyone but the current shower or their associates will do me fine.

Sick of them.

TheABC · 10/09/2019 17:09

Data is the new cannon fodder in politics and business. However, it's worth squat if:

A) it's not kept up to date
And
B) it's not from a trusted source.

Facebook ads are not a magical elixir. I agree with @BigChocFrenzy's comment about the Far Right, but they are still only a subset of the voters any Government need to win over.

If I went to the dark side:

  • you need a sliding message to allow people to maintain respectability. E.g. we are "only" maintaining background checks in housing in order to conserve stocks for British born residents.
  • we are "only" pausing Parliament for five weeks.

Then add a "but", excluding your favoured group from it. "But it will never happen to good/native/other" voters. Austerity on steroids.

  • Then normalise and extend via already-trusted sources. This is where quizzes, memes and snippets come in. There's a lot of us who would not trust the BBC to say it's Wednesday, but will happily pass along a post on social without always verifying it.
  • Repeat, repeat, repeat. It's a noisy world. Again, as more people say and see, the more you accept it. Viral information.
  • Finally, impose fear to reinforce the narrative. Jo Cox was not intentional, but can you imagine how bad it would be, if it were? If people started disappearing and you were scared to complain because it meant you would not get you rationed medicine or your husband next job would be threatened by background checks?

That's why it's so important to have a counter-narrative. That's why I keep talking about it in real life and on Facebook. Silence equals assent.

FractalChaos · 10/09/2019 17:12

I would like to point out the post I made a while ago about The Netflix CA stuff..about how targetted FB could be. It got pretty much ignored at the time, but anyway.... (it may have been under a nc actually!)
The petition has email addresses. These can be fed into FB. They can now run targetted FB ads/propaganda at you. FB has a checkbox to check the use of them is legit. The argument re GDPR above says they are so that is that barrier crossed.

PerkingFaintly · 10/09/2019 17:12

Do secretive, microtargetted ads work?

Well, Carole Cadwalladr went back to the Welsh valleys to find out why Ebbw Vale was one of the strongest Leave votes in the UK. It has hardly any immigration, but local people report that most of the referendum discussion was about immigration. She and the local shopkeeper couldn't understand why.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/25/view-wales-town-showered-eu-cash-votes-leave-ebbw-vale

After she wrote this piece, someone from Ebbw Vale got in touch with Cadwalladr and said, "I got these Facebook ads about immigration..."

More here: www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_facebook_s_role_in_brexit_and_the_threat_to_democracy?language=en

Similarly, I remember one MN poster – real or otherwise – doing a good job of sounding genuinely terrified about Turkey imminently joining the EU and millions of Turks flooding into the EU. Just like the Facebook ad falsely showed, in fact...

Hoooo · 10/09/2019 17:15

Trump has sacked John Bolton.

Interesting.

DGRossetti · 10/09/2019 17:18

Of course, following on from Stalins observation

The people who cast the votes mean nothing, the people who count the votes are everything

then all you really need is a way to fake a few thousand votes in key marginals to get the government of your choice.

Of course, it may have already happened ...

When I was a student and mixing with some US refugees, they said it was "common knowledge" that's how Nixon got back in a second time Hmm.

I say "refugee" - they fled the draft and settled in the UK after the Carter amnesty. Sad parallels to the current situation in a few respects, proportion granted.

PerkingFaintly · 10/09/2019 17:22

This is the Channel4 whistleblowing series on Cambridge Analytica's data tricks.

www.channel4.com/news/data-democracy-and-dirty-tricks-cambridge-analytica-uncovered-investigation-expose

The important takeaway, for those short of time, is this excerpt from that series. It's undercover film of Nix and Mark Turnbull.

www.cbsnews.com/news/cambridge-analytica-ceo-alexander-nix-data-firm-describes-shadow-election-tactics-2018-03-19/

"The two fundamental human driver when it comes to taking information on board effectively are hopes and fears, and many of those are unspoken and the even unconscious -- you didn't know that was a fear until you saw something that just evoked that reaction from you," Turnbull explained in a meeting with a reporter posing as "Ranjan," a prospective client from Sri Lanka.

He continued, "And our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else to understand what are those really deep-seated underlying fears, concerns. There is no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it's all about emotion."
[...]
"We just put information into the bloodstream of the internet, and then watch it grow, give it a little push every now and again like a remote control," he said. "It has to happen without anyone thinking, 'that's propaganda', because the moment you think, 'That's propaganda', the next question is, 'Who's put that out?' So we have to be subtle."

Myriade · 10/09/2019 17:25

FWIW this stuff about data and its use is te reason why so many EU itizens havent applied for SS. Because to do you have no other chice that agree for your data to 'be used by other parties' as the gvernment sees fit.

Thats also why Ive always been horrified by how lax the laws around data are in the UK.

Never mind targetted ads. think about information on race, political opinions, nationality etc....
Eg Ive always been astonished that when doing the census, which has SO MANY personal information, they also asked you for your name 'just in case they need to contact you'....

PerkingFaintly · 10/09/2019 17:28

Fractal, which is the Netflix Cambridge Analytica stuff?

(I've tried to keep up with the documentaries and investigations into Cambridge Analytica, Aggregate IQ and Arron Banks' use of his insurance company's database for Leave campaigning, but I don't get Netflix so may have missed that one.)

DGRossetti · 10/09/2019 17:30

I wonder if tickling the parent pressure point over drugs might do something ?

news.sky.com/story/one-in-four-youngsters-exposed-to-illegal-drug-ads-on-social-media-11804202

PerkingFaintly · 10/09/2019 17:38

JeSuisPoulet, I did wonder who commissioned that YouGov survey when you (and other posters?) reported on it before.

JeSuisPoulet · 10/09/2019 17:42

The Big Hack is good and the other is Brexit The Uncivil War - with Benedict Cumberbatch on Netflix.

JeSuisPoulet · 10/09/2019 17:44

DGR interesting you picked that story. The bonkers lady I did my degree with (if you remember me posting her semi-religious rantings about Brexit all being part of a divine WW3) posted that on her fb two days ago with "are we protecting our children enough" as a heading. If anyone is getting CumBot spam it is that lady.

Halfeatentoast · 10/09/2019 17:46

Well yes it's not about making people switch their views entirely just playing on a vague worry they have.

ListeningQuietly · 10/09/2019 17:47

Trump has sacked John Bolton
THe world just got a little bit safer
Phew

Peregrina · 10/09/2019 17:48

If people started disappearing and you were scared to complain because it meant you would not get you rationed medicine or your husband next job would be threatened by background checks?

Don't forget that millions of people in E Europe did have to live with things like this. But they did, in the end, manage to overthrow the regimes.

Mind you, late DF was a CO during the last war, and always felt that it damaged his Civil Service career. (Personally, I am not sure, I think he may just have been a bit too outspoken for them anyway.)

Halfeatentoast · 10/09/2019 17:49

And some people on facebook don't seem yo realise that anyone can write a meme or even an essay on a website with no fact checking at all.

JeSuisPoulet · 10/09/2019 17:54

Halfeaten yes I've begun calling people out on that again - No Dealer and his memes have become increasingly grating.

It's too little too late (she says after having to click "I Accept" to refresh the feed on MN just now) but I'm downloading my fb profile and de-activating my account. I know it won't ever really be deleted but it's a step towards them not knowing as much about me. Google however...

redchocolatebutton · 10/09/2019 17:55

I found the last census quite scary tbh.
the amount of door-to-door or people with lists. the threats of criminal prosecution if the data is not returned, the involvement of the american data collection company and the uncertainties on how that data will be used.

RedToothBrush · 10/09/2019 17:56

Don't forget that millions of people in E Europe did have to live with things like this. But they did, in the end, manage to overthrow the regimes.

Don't forget everyone who died and didn't live with things like this.

I do find the 'we survived the war' type comments really do minimise the horror and hardship and death involved.

Eastern Europe didn't overthrow its chains for 45 years.

I'd be 86 and my son in his fifties having the freedom of his youth totally lost as a best case scenario.

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Camomila · 10/09/2019 17:56

Foreign friends are always amazed English DC are allowed to give up History at 14. Admitedly I don't remember a lot of the events I learnt about but I remember a lot of "who is this source by?" "why did they write it?"

JeSuisPoulet · 10/09/2019 18:01

Trouble is SM was based around not having to rely on mainstream sources and so a lot of misguided people see memes as "speaking the REAL truth". No Dealer's posts have a heavy impetus on the words 'truth' and 'liar'. It's the ease of not having to check sources before you share the outrage that makes fb so appealing to those who are time pressured or lacking in objective education.

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