Westminstenders: It's like a bloody aviary

[RedToothBrush]

From Flamingos to Yellowhammer and Black Swans.

The Tory Remainer is now a Dodo. Instead the party in inhabited by disaster capitalist Vultures. Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, has been labelled by the right wing press as a Chicken. The SNP would very much like Boris Johnson to be a Jailbird. The LDs are keen to sing like Canaries about the contents of BlackSwan. The Br

And the Tower of London is starting to get very jumpy about the whereabouts and location of its Ravens.

I would not, however, advise eating urban wild pigeons if things get desperate, from what I know of their health.

wrt laws
what about gdpr
or the liquid restrictions on flights?

As I said, without an example, no

The argument was that he thought a particular regulation was badly written. It is now part of UK law. We don't have a choice about that.

He then was saying "Do you know how to change EU regulations?" - he talked about how you can vote for a party in the UK and if they win, they can change regulations / laws in the UK . He then said that it's impossible to change regulations within the EU - and that MEPs can't do it.

So the question is:

If people in a country in the EU think a regulation isn't working for them and their people, how can the people of that country change that EU regulation through democratic means?

woodpigeons, DS' school organised a trip to Spain this year, leaving on 29th March! I thought they were mad. It wasn't for his year group so the dilemma of whether to let him go on it didn't arise (thank goodness).

But going to Ireland is fine - we're in the CTA, Brexit doesn't affect it. Travel insurance is the main issue but should be provided as part of the trip. I think ferries will be fine too.

My ds will be going to Italy in late Feb, I assume the flights will be ok (though the letter said they wanted to book flights with British Airways - I wonder if it will still exist then, not because of Brexit but because of the strikes, and IT problems!)

If people in a country in the EU think a regulation isn't working for them and their people, how can the people of that country change that EU regulation through democratic means

You lobby the EU to revise the legislation. It happens. We had the Data Protection Directive 1995, now we have the GDPR, for example. There is new consumer protection legislation coming into force in 2012 (although on that, the UK is ahead, as they've actually copied/adapted some of our Consumer Rights Act on digital content).

I suspect we'd be a lot more active about campaigning to remove VAT on sanitary products across the EU if we were staying in he EU, as well.

While a new regulation is being formulated in the EU, every country has input and a consensus is formed.

In the past, when the UK really objects to a regulation, it has either got its own way, or it has received optouts

If a country finds later that a particular regulation isn't working well, then the govt of that country would lobby to have it changed

From the EU site, this explains how laws are scoped, then drafted and then go to the EU Parliament for debate and revision.

The EP can block legislation it doesn't want, so it's approval is essential

europa.eu/european-union/eu-law/decision-making/procedures_en

Rumours on Twitter of another big defection to the Lib Dem’s later tonight.

Also, a significant % of EU regulations are merely adopting UN regulations, which every country must adopt anyway (
unless they are NKorea)

Veteran Leaver R North refers to this as the "double coffin lid":
A country that leaves the EU and hence its regulations, would find that some "EU" laws would remain, because they are in fact UN ones

Won't that be Heidi Allen? That's been well trailed.

Not Heidi Allen apparently (or as well as).

Defection only big news for the rest of us if that MP is still a member of the Tory (or Labour) party

A defection from Tory rebel / Independent to LDems doesn't change the arithmatic in the HoC

He’s lost it

www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-says-this-is-your-captain-speaking-as-he-posts-bizarre-selfie-video-from-plane-a4236631.html

Huh. Will be interesting if it's a Tory who is currently taking the whip.

Twitter thinks Sam Gymiah

I think that video is “Boris being Boris”, it’s what he’s got away with for years.

We need to check out where DH colostomy bags come from... and what the impact (!) of short supplies will be. I know what the immediate impact will be, the question is how do we get it where it matters?! (finding light in the darkest corners etc etc etc)

Times Letter from Jonathon Powell

(chief British negotiator on NI, No. 10 chief of Staff, career FCO)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/times-letters-brexit-and-the-northern-ireland-border-kd5sngzn0

"In the game of bluff and double bluff being played in the Brexit negotiations it is easy to lose sight of the iron rule of logic that governs the issue of the Northern Ireland border
....
If we leave the single market and the customs union, as we will have to for the Canada-style free trade agreement favoured by Boris Johnson, there will have to be a border somewhere.

It can be between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland,
between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK
or between the island of Ireland and the rest of the EU.

'The DUP has a perfectly legitimate complaint against the border between Northern Ireland and Britain because it undermines its identity.

The Irish are rightly never going to agree to a border with the EU.

And a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic would reopen the issue of identity underpinning the Good Friday agreement.

This has been the problem bedevilling the Brexit talks since the start and to suggest that a common agricultural area for the whole of Ireland and some cobbled-together ideas about trusted trader schemes solves it, is nonsense.

In truth we are still a long way from a negotiated deal and no one has yet found the magic key to unlock it."

He hasn’t been PM for years, though.

That’s very true! 🤣

DGR - regarding the SCOTUK hearing:

Tuesday is the first day of the live-streamed hearing of the 3 appeals (from Scotland, England and NI). The judges on the panel will, however, have sight of written “cases” in advance (called skeleton arguments in English courts below the SC). Normally these are due to be filed 6 weeks in advance, but obviously the timetable has been accelerated hugely for these appeals.

Eleven of the total of 12 Supreme Court Justices will sit (i.e. all except Lord Briggs), reflecting the importance of the case. They can’t all sit because 12 is an even number and doesn’t allow for a majority decision.

SC hearings are kept as short and focused as possible - rarely more than 2 days - but the Gina Miller case on Art 50 took up the best part of 4 court days. Judgment will be reserved and handed down at a later date in written form. Usually this takes weeks to months to produce after a hearing, but obviously there will be huge pressure of urgency in the current set of cases.

That video of BJ-Cummings is positively Trumpian in its cringe worthiness

An observation: this Wednesday will be 5 years to the day that the Indyref was held during which the Scottish voters were told that the only way Scotland could stay in the EU was if they voted No and so stayed in the UK #justsaying

I have a specific example of EN rules in U.K. context, if it helps.
But I might bore you to death with it ;-)
If you buy a material in construction, these days, a EU law says that it must come with a declaration of performance (a CE marking). Depending on the material (a beam, a brick, insulation etc) the declaration must cover different aspects, like density, or strength or tolerances or reaction to fire etc, and these aspects have to be tested to specific standards and methods that are all the same throughout Europe. This allows a british builder to buy a slab of mineral wool made in Germany, knowing that it doesn’t have anymore to trawl through a patchwork of codes to understand if its flammability tested to DIN standard is the same as the one tested to BS standards.
That’s basically a level play field.
The U.K. government then has a national law (a building code) that tells me what is the accepted performance for the material in British buildings. Which might be more or less strict that the one of the Spanish code for Spanish buildings. Or it might be stricter for (ie) a stadium but less for a house. This is written by British law in British codes.
A few people might grumble that because of a EU law now they have to re-test a product they’ve produced or sold for decades and come up with a new classification. An architect might grumble because he needs to study what is now this new classification and replace the reference to the old BS standard with the new BS EN.
But the committee that wrote th standard was composed by every nation, including the U.K., and essentially the British government still has full power to determine what is acceptable and what is not.

This also means that if British Gypsum will want to keep on selling its boards to EU, brexit or not they’ll have still to test their materials and provides certificates that classify them to EN standards, or they’ll not be sellable....

I’m hearing this from people too. My Mum is a Remainer but has always voted Conservative, she’ll be voting Labour this time.

Totally genuine question - why?

Corbyn is a Lexiter - regardless of any other damage people think he might do to the economy, I genuinely don’t understand why a Remainer would vote for him and his party?

What are they offering WRT Brexit?

I really would love to understand this as I’m politically homeless right now.