Westminstenders: "I don't give a flying flamingo"

[RedToothBrush]

Amid scenes parliament was shut down.

In an unprecedented comment the Speaker, stated it was not an ordinary prorogation and it was blatantly an attempt to stop the executive being held to account.

And now it seems a Scottish Court agree with him:
"Lord Brodie cont: "the principal reasons for the prorogation were to prevent or impede parliament holding the executive to account and legislating with regard to Brexit, and to allow the executive to pursue a policy of a no deal Brexit without further parliamentary interference"

Thus parliament must reopen. Unless the decision is overturned in a higher court.

This is constitutionally a big deal. The Queen is highly unlikely to attend a reopening, especially in this manner, due to how political it now is.

General Election campaigning has already began with parties trying to take full advantage of the fact that there are currently no rules over spending.

Dominic Cummings actively and openly campaigning for the Conservatives whilst paid as a civil servant by the tax payer is a huge breech of the Civil service code but MPs are struggling to pin the government down on this as its being obstructive.

Cummings is keen to use data to target and personalise people based on their usage of the .gov portal for Brexit. This is OK as its in the national interest apparently. Its also incredibly sinister and concerning about how this could be used against the population.

Anyway if you thought parliament closing would result in a lull in events you were very much mistaken!!

What next?

Why does the WA with NI-only backstop mean a hard Brexit? I thought the closeness of the future relationship was all in the PD and up for renegotiation?

Well.

There it is.

"Project fear" indeed.

Your not wrong pretty. Flaring is both hot and noisy and even worse on a small metal box surrounded by lots and lots of the North Sea.

I have vivid memories of a couple of flaring incidents that had the potential to be much nastier than they were. Because all the people involved knew what they were about and the control systems had been extensively tested......

Ha!

Read that as "poxyPM"

🤣

Just talking to DH about if the Supreme Court finds Johnson lied to the Queen and whether that means he would have to resign.

He replied, after a long pause:

"That'd be treason".

Trying to work it out. 'High Treason' is defined as 'disloyalty to the Crown' but it depends on how exactly its defined. I'm not sure if it could stretch that far.

But its certainly an interesting query.

Why does the WA with NI-only backstop mean a hard Brexit? I thought the closeness of the future relationship was all in the PD and up for renegotiation?

Because if it's the tories negotiating the trade deal they get to sell the Island of GB's safety, health, and security standards down the river without it affecting the all Ireland economy.

NI would get soft brexit whilst the rest of us were sold off piece by piece to America.

If anyone was attempting to negotiate a soft brexit than the NI backstop is relegated to an insurance policy that will never be needed. The tories considering it tell us exactly what they have planned for the rest of us.

The opposition would have to be insane to vote through the W.A with a N.I only backstop having rejected an all UK backstop as too hard - as that would have offered the people of GB some modicum of protection.

Hoooo #PoxyProxyPM

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Can confirm that there was a circulated version of this document from August 2nd that said “base case scenario” on it... told that does not contradict the idea it is at same time the reasonable worst case planning assumption...

That does sound a bit confused, but it is also worth saying that the core assumption here on trade flow (40-60%) across the channel has been described as “Reasonable Worst Case” in other documents, eg from Border Force.

*I must admit I find it mindboogling that the government redacted anything if they knew it was already leaked and the press would merely report what it said in the leaked version.

It's like a klaxon to 'please read this'*

Or the redactions are distraction - get everyone to talk about that?

Lewis Goodall @lewis_goodall
UPDATE: I am getting some mega pushback from officials about how complete this information is. One source from DEFRA tells me: “this may be the doc that closely resembles leaked docs, but info in some areas resembles stuff from at least 12 months ago.”

Why does the WA with NI-only backstop mean a hard Brexit? I thought the closeness of the future relationship was all in the PD and up for renegotiation?

It is far too dependent on the govt. A Brexit that would reflect the actual closeness of the result would be a Norway-style including Single Market. But May (Nick Timothy) didn't want FOM so ruled it out.

Exactly BCF. Base so in reality its gonna be a whole lot worse!
Gosh I did not realise just how much I despise the Tory Party! Its just getting worse and worse. They really are shits!
When my dd came in this afternoon I was sitting with my hands over ears, sound on t.v. muted while 'loathesome' talked. I always feel ( not envy) when she's on.

So ... if the govt were legally bound to publish operation Yellowhammer by 11pm tonight - and it later (is proven) transpires that what they published was in fact not Yellowhammer but just a redacted and potentially out of date summary of it ... have they broken the law? (again?)

In other news, Amber Rudd has come out in favour of PR.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/11/amber-rudd-proportional-representation-voting-system-speech-brexit?CMP=ShareiOSApppOther&twitterrimpression=true

Oh, I remember when we couldn't move to PR because it produced unstable governments ...

flouncyfanny the contractors succeeded where the IRA had failed.

Might have involved a power cut.

With Parliament closed, there is no record of the unofficial proceedings
I think John Crace is being factual in this snippet, but I have no official source data to check against

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/10/corbyn-keeps-home-crowd-happy-after-late-night-drama?

in committee room 16, Yvette Cooper and a handful of opposition MPs were mounting their own guerrilla government by holding
an unofficial session of the home affairs select committee.
.....
the proceedings weren’t televised.
So the evidence of Pauline Bastidon, the head of European policy for the Freight Transport Authority, that the government’s Brexit preparations were still largely a mystery to her
went almost entirely unnoticed.

🤦‍♀️

"if it's the tories negotiating the trade deal"

QueenofThorns

It might not be the Tories by the time any trade deal is ready
That takes years
and the trade deal would have to be passed by the HoC

Years for a Labour govt to come to power, to negotiate a soft Brexit
Years for the moderate Tories to take back their party

The reason hardcore Remainers claim the WA is hard Brexit is because although it stops No Deal, it stops Remain too

They want Remain

That's their reason for continually demonising the WA

NoCryingInEngineering

I’ve stood on the (noticeably swaying) accommodation platform to a sister rig of Piper Alpha in a howling gale at night watching the flare and thinking - do I really want to be here? Pretty quickly realised that it was a “no”.

We do NOT have a realistic choice of Remain at this stage

@Red Shout if you think I'm being too tough here on Remain

It's basically WA vs No Deal

For Remain to win needs a fantastic chain of events to happen:

• We need an extension, in order to have a GE before Brexit

• but BJ will use all legal means to avoid this and would also almost certainly resign as PM rather than do this

• So we probably have no PM after 19 October and the Rebel Alliance must find another before 31 October

• The Rebel Alliance need to agree on a PM - v difficult to make this happen

• That leader then needs to get a long extension from the EU - that's OK, v good chance they'd agree

• Then hold the GE

• BUT Corbyn has to win with some of his own MPs like Tom Watson opposing him
  AND
  The Ldems refusing to stand down in Labour seats

• Then the PV must be held, whether WA vs Remain or some renegotiated deal vs Remain
  AND this time somehow overcome the Leaver psyops and win for Remain

The reason hardcore Remainers claim the WA is hard Brexit is because although it stops No Deal, it stops Remain too

The WA isn't hard Brexit but it is pretty rubbish Brexit and remain would be much better.
It may not be politically achievable but it would be better.
A properly soft Brexit would also be better.
So I wouldn't blame anyone for looking at the WA and thinking really, we can't do better than this?

The complaint that the WA lets the govt do a disastrous bare bones FTA afterwards

basically rules out ANY Brexit WA we can negotiate

Because no WA can bind a future UK govt in future trade negotiations and certainly cannot bind a future EU, which needs consent from 27 future govts

Pumpkin The WA is just the Exit Deal.
It won't change even if Magic Grandpa wins a GE and renegotiates

He can only renegotiate the PD - the future trade framework - which cannot be legally binding on future negotiations to be carried out by future givernments

The WA will be terrible for the UK economy long-term.

I hear what you're saying, BigChoc but the WA is not a good option for the UK.

The only thing going for it is that it's better than No Deal.

It's important not to lose sight of the fact that the UK has put itself in an absolutely diabolical state of affairs if it has come to serious consideration of the WA.

It's terribly sad.

And I'm with you on Lexit, actually. I know some posters think it would be better but I think a Len McCluskey Lexit is substantially different from s Keir Starmer Lexit - & the McCluskey Lexit would look a lot like the WA.