Westminstenders: Constitutional History

[RedToothBrush]

The Supreme Court case continues
(ruling possible Friday but likely Monday)

The new NI proposal is bollocks and Johnson didn't get why until it was discussed in Europe.

There was a press conference in Luxembourg which looks good for Johnson.

Johnsons approval ratings are up.

And we are making no obvious progress to anything but no deal...

Kuper nailed it there I think. Thanks for posting it kings

Interesting move.

labourlist.org/2019/09/labour-mps-hopeful-for-brexit-deal-meet-michel-barnier/

My interpretation of this is that it shows that when Boris Johnson accused his opponents of undermining his negotiation position, he was correct, they are clearly continuing to do that.

Why, one wonders, if their aim is (presumably) to secure a deal in Parliament are the talking to Michel Barnier? The only conclusion that I can draw is that they are actively reinforcing the EUs determination to not move an inch in the direction of the Government.

Laura Kuenssberg@bbclaurak
1. UK says they have given EU details of what they propose for new “We have now shared in written form a series of confidential technical non-papers which reflect the ideas the UK has been putting forward. We will table formal written solutions when we are ready”

2. EU has just confirmed this as well - reminder as ever that so much of this ‘we don’t know what you want’ - ‘oh yes you do’ - is a political dance and doesn’t always reflect what is actually happening

3. Introduces also the new Brexit word ‘non-papers’ into the lexicon - anyone on here care to define

I believe a non-paper is something like an unofficial talking point.

This is what you hand in to lecturers two weeks before deadline day when your been partying for the last 3 years and suddenly realise you havent even got your topic for your final dissertation approved.

Border for some things in the Irish Sea and for others not. No, maybe not an idea after all.

Also I do feel that where ever checks take place become a virtual border. To be frictionless it has to be as easy to send goods from Belfast to Dublin as it is from London to Manchester. That needs to be one of Johnson's tests; not wheezes about how the Congestion charge technology could be pressed into service.

Peregrina The EU would not allow essential checks for their SM to be carried out by a non-member
So those checks would need to be EU-supervised - at UK expense

Louise while they can't get to Parliament they, unlike BoZo, feel the need to look at options and talk to the EU with some thought out ideas?

Is it just me who thinks Johnson is behaving like a teenager pissing about on his X box when he should be getting on with his homework?

Louise There is no undermining when BJ, like all the ERG lot, are demanding concessions that would destroy the EU

Makes no difference if the HoC passed a unanimous motion of support in BJ's hard line

The EU will not risk their SM - on which their prosperity depends - or dump Ireland - which would wreck them politically

All that political opponents are doing when they withhold criticism is letting BJ continue in his ignorance and fantasy

• and continuing to con the public that the UK govt knows what it is doing

These particular MPs share in the ERG / SIngham fantasy that Alternative Arrangements could replace the backstiop in the near future
i.e. they are looking to fantasy rather than face up to the hard choices

imo, it is not the ERG that will land us in No Deal - they are too few; it is the hundreds of MPs who indulge in displacement activity and fantay, while the clock runs out

kingsassassin its a well written comment, I'll give it that.

Are you suggesting that people are wrong to feel threatened by the increase in the EUs power?

The point about projection and weakness is interesting. In relative global terms I don't think the UK is weak. Sure, we don't have the economic or other types of power that the largest economies have but we aren't tiny either.

I now think the UKs "weakness", if such there be, is far more likely to be exposed in the domestic political sphere through the breakup of the Union than it is on the international stage. That's where I think the UKs weakness is currently underestimated.

I've read that quite a bit of NI / GB trade is via the Irish Republic:
it travels by land over the border, then from an Irish port

That's where some Irish Sea checks could be made
The other checks would be at the other 5 or 6 ports involved in NI / GB trade - so much easier to have those few locations to monitor, instead of 500km of winding land border / former "bandit country"

Actually if there's one thing I would credit Caroline Flint and Stephen Kinnock with now, it is that they have shown some willingness to face up to hard choices, and under normal circs I would be loath to credit those two with anything much.

Poulets point about them meeting Barnier in the absence of parliament sitting is a good one and I hadn't thought of that.

Which is Border in the Sea. Which makes sense to anyone that isn't Arlene Foster and her bunch of zealots.

For several centuries, a key part of English and then UK foreign policy has been to prevent a power rising on the continent which is greater than the UK
The public has generally shared that aim

Of course, that failed back in the early 1960s, when the UK govt then realised that the country was being slowly marginalised outside the then Common Market

It is a very tough transition from empire to ordinary country, as we've seen in other countries that were formerly superpowers in their time
In the past, this has happened over centuries; hence more time to adjust

The UK's problem is that this happened in such a relatively short space of time, greatly accelerated by being almost bankrupted by WW2 - and then basically looted of centuries of accumulated wealth & power by the USA

Yep, bellini Irish Sea border, with just a few well-controlled ports, can be done with current tech
A 500km land border can't

Arlene might find Government less bothered about their votes seeing as they are at -43 anyway. Less need to pussyfoot around her now.

Are you suggesting that people are wrong to feel threatened by the increase in the EUs power?

Personally, I don't feel threatened by any increase in the EUs power. I feel more threatened by the extreme right wing Government that we have with untrammelled powers.

But if I were, this would not be a problem if the UK had been willing to play its full part, which it hasn't been doing since the Tories got back into power in 2010, (supposedly a Coalition, but one which shafted the junior partners.)

We could then have made sensible suggestions as to how this power could have been constrained; one idea of which was inner and outer rings of the EU. Cameron rejected this because he wanted to be 'at the top table'.

Please accept my apologies, I have totally taken my eye off the ball due to the arrival of this young man.

Humour me for a second if you will - do we expect judgement from the supreme court today? Or next week? What do we think the result will be? Government 'wins' and we remain prorogued?

Re 'undermining'.

When you havent got a majority in parliament you have an authority issue full stop, and the onus is on you to have a policy which takes that on board.

Given the fragility of the UK politically, I think its somewhat prudent of the EU to engage with various different groups they might be dealing with in 2 months, 6 months or 3 years because Brexit is not a time limited event that finishes on the 31st October.

Since negotiations are going to go on for years regardless, from their point of view knowing how things might change after a GE (which after all is what Johnson wants) is crucial to their own plans.

In terms of 'undermining' that merely depends on where you are standing politically in the UK. Others here will view it as strengthening the UK's position for when Johnson finally fucks it and it being in the national interest to be prepared for that point.

I personally think that the EU engaging with everyone from Farage, Rees-Mogg, Corbyn, Umunna, Swinson etc as well as Johnson is a sign of genuine good faith and willingness to have a good relationship with the UK regardless of how this all turns out.

I'd say that taking it personally that people other than Johnson are getting an audience is a real sign of a fragile ego and growing insecurity in Johnsons own ability.

We are all seeing things from different perspectives.

Hope Foster will be told to shove her stupidity where the sun don't shine and the rest of NI can get on in peace and prosperity with a functioning GFA.
And Quitlings here can shove their nonsense up their arses. Or pretend it was what they wanted all along. Whatever works for them.

@TokyoSushi , that is one fine dog right there! And

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall

I have no intelligence on this but I think after yesterday’s rather political and dramatic interventions from Aidan O’Neill the Justices are rather concerned that this is becoming about merits and demerits of Brexit
ergo even more political and therefore their judgment demeaned.

TokyoSushi What a fine little lad !

Mike Fordham, QC on behalf of the Counsel General for Wales was brilliant. Clear and concise, and very much bringing it back to the law on judicial review (he apparently wrote "the" book on it )

Finished with "things are judiciable in principle but not in this case, then they are just empty words"

😂 Anyone see that ?

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

Best ever Freudian slip in British politics?

Did you spit at the TV when you saw the Leave campaign's red bus?

Cameron: "Believe me, I did more than that. I shat, er I spat..." 😂
@itvthismorning

I can't keep my eyes on the ball either but is the Independent right that...
Stephen Barclay said the government should be given another year to find a new policy for the Irish border????

Of course blaming the patient but EU messed around bybour games.. "EUhas set Britain a test it "cannot meet" with its demands for a backstop replacement, the Brexit Secretary has said."

Er -no - we set ourselves a timescale and test we can't meet
Steve.